Rent Little Caesar (1931)
3.5 of 5 from 112 ratings
1h 16min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- "Little Caesar" is the tale of pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), a hoodlum with a Chicago-sized chip on his shoulder, few attachments, fewer friends and no sense of underworld diplomacy. And Robinson - a genteel art collector who disdained guns (in the movie, his eyelids were taped to keep them from blinking when he fired a pistol) - was forever associated with the screen's archetypal gangster.
- Actors:
- Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr., Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Ince, Thomas E. Jackson, Stanley Fields, Maurice Black, George E. Stone, Armand Kaliz, Nicholas Bela, Ernie Adams, Elmer Ballard, Ferike Boros, Kernan Cripps, George Daly, Adolph Faylauer, Ben Hendricks Jr., Al Hill
- Directors:
- Mervyn LeRoy
- Producers:
- Hal B. Wallis, Darryl F. Zanuck
- Writers:
- W.R. Burnett, Francis Edward Faragoh
- Others:
- Francis Faragoh
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- All the Best: A Celebration of New Year Movies, Award Winners, Films & TV by topic, Heist Movies: A 20-Year Stretch, Holidays Film Collection, Memory Lane: Films Set in 1920s, The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 1, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 Performances As William Shakespeare, Top Films, What We Were Watching in 1971
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 14/08/2017
- Run Time:
- 78 minutes
- Languages:
- Castilian Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, German Dolby Digital 1.0
- Subtitles:
- Brazilian, Castillian, English Hard of Hearing, French, German Hard of Hearing, Latin American Spanish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.78:1 / 16:9
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Commentary by Film Historian Richard B. Jewell
- Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1931 with Newsreel, Spencer Tracy Short 'The Hard Guy', Cartoon 'Lady Play Your Mandolin' and Theatrical Trailers
- Featurette 'Little Caesar: End of Rico', 'Beginning of the Antihero'
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Reviews (2) of Little Caesar
One Wrong Word From Losing It - Little Caesar review by griggs
Rico Bandello claws his way from petty stick-ups to running Chicago's underworld, and I'll admit I nearly lost patience with the people around him — half the supporting cast are still acting for the back row, throwing their arms about like sound hadn't been invented yet.
Then Edward G. Robinson opens his mouth and everything clicks. He's coiled, twitchy, always a bad sentence away from snapping. He also seems to be the only person on set who's worked out you don't need to shout every line. He carries scenes that would otherwise creak, and this is early enough in sound pictures that most of the cast hasn't caught up with him yet.
It wobbles near the end too, leaning on title cards instead of just showing what's happening. Public Enemy has sharper instincts, Scarface has more nerve, but this one got there first.
Rough around the edges, but you can draw a straight line from Rico to every wiseguy who came after him.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Gangster Prototype. - Little Caesar review by Steve
Pioneering early sound gangster film. Credit to WR. Burnett who wrote the source novel, based on Chicago mafia boss Al Capone, which shaped the genre for the next ten years. It's a rags to riches story. A crime empire is built through violence, which is destroyed by violence- and the anti-hero's hideous flaws. This is the dark side of the American dream.
It invented the look of the mob film: the loud, expensive clothes; the big black sedans; the platinum moll in silver lingerie; the Tommy guns. But it is dated. Scenes with dialogue are static and most of the support performances are creaky. A weeping Italian mother is unbearable. There's not nearly enough of Glenda Farrell, as a pugnacious, fast-talking night club dancer.
There are the thumbprints of the studio lawyers all over this. Rico (Edward G. Robinson) can't be a charismatic figure, so he is the worst man possible: vain, disloyal, stupid, arrogant. And just in case the audience doesn't get the message there is a written homily scrolled down the screen before the film starts. The moralising is too intrusive.
Robinson dominates the screen and he creates one of the defining visual images of thirties Hollywood. There's some punchy tough guy talk but we don't see much of the prohibition or how the mob makes its money. There is fascinating social history and it's a groundbreaking film but limited by censorship and primitive technology.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.