50. Little Caesar (1930)

Directed By Mervyn LeRoy

Synopsis

Meteoric rise to gangsta power! Meteoric fall from gangsta power!

Review

Finally a gangster film! I loves me gangsters! Really, and this is where you get the seed for all mob films of the future, from Goodfellas to Godfather. In post-depression USA there were two kinds of films, the totally escapist musical or the depressing films made by Warner, and this falls squarely in the second category.

There is no avoiding a strong sense of deja vu when watching this film, in fact you have probably watched it a thousand times without knowing it. All the stereotypes of the gangster film are here, but that is allright because they are being invented here. All mobsters are Italian and all policemen are Irish, drive by shootings on church steps, against shop windows, the gangster loved by the people in the street, the big banquet with all the mob sitting around a U shaped table. Even Edward Robinson's way of speaking became a gangster staple, repeated endlessly in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

If you haven't seen it, you are really missing out, not because the story is so amazing, which it isn't, but Robinson's performance and the sheer influence that this film exerted on later directors make it essential viewing. Although the story isn't really that complex, it is still entertaning, particularly in the way in which it critiques the idea of the American Dream, and mimics the stockmarket crash in the life of this little man. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia



From Wikipedia:

Famous Quotes

"Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" - Ed. G. Robinson as "Rico" Bandello saying his final words.

(This is an early example of Hollywood censorship- in the novel the line reads "Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?")


Acclaim and Legacy

Little Caesar was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adaptation.

Little Caesar was remade in 1973 as Black Caesar.

In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

It has been speculated, but never confirmed, that the anti-organized crime statutes in the United States were dubbed RICO in a sly homage to Little Caesar. The original drafter of the RICO bill has refused to confirm or deny this.