SnoReptilePlenty
Memorable, crazy movie
Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Philippa
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
marym52
One of the funniest movies I've seen in ages- featuring:Edward G. Robinson as a genial bootlegger going legit after prohibition with a brewery making horrible beer.Ruth Donnelly as his wife, trying to be teddibly refined.All the great character actors who played mugs in the 1930s playing it for laughs.A wild party4 corpses in the guest room closetA stuffy prospective father-in-lawAnd, best of all, Bobby Jordan as the beer-swilling Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom, the worst orphan in New York.Try it-- you'll like it!
JohnHowardReid
Although the 1936 stage play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay was only moderately successful (it ran only 70 performances), Warner Brothers bought it as a vehicle for Edward G. Robinson. Now that meant that before the camera turned, the movie had at least two strikes against it. Edward G. is not a comedian. He lacks a comic touch and is totally unconvincing as a brewer who has (1) never tasted his own beer and (2) never listened to innumerable complaints, made over a four-year period. He is in fact a totally unsympathetic character. The rest of the players try their best to take up the slack, but their acting is flat. They are not helped by the talky script with its strictly one-dimensional characterizations. Robinson proves another hindrance with his uncommunicative acting and his constant attempts to hog the camera and override everyone else's lines and bits of business. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon who tries to push the story along but is continually stymied by the camera-hogging Robinson's gross overacting. Edward G. doesn't just say his mediocre lines. He shouts them! Don't get me wrong, I like Edward G. – but not as the lead in a comedy. Available on a Warner Brothers DVD.
cstotlar-1
This would seem to have all the elements for a good Thirties comedy. Robinson with his great timing and the great Damon Runyon sounds like a very winning combination. However, the film got rather heavy-handed treatment from the adapters and Damon Runyon's material seems more out-dated than retro chic. The Bowery Boys-like characters make things quite obvious that the treatment will be rather crude and Lloyd Bacon's perfunctory treatment and static direction don't help much either. "Arsenic and Old Lace" is around the corner with Capra's stable of character actors. This seems to just miss the mark.Curtis Stotlar
Michael O'Keefe
Veteran actor Edward G. Robinson with tongue-in-cheek pokes fun at his gangster movie image in this comedy about the end of Prohibition. Alcohol once again is allowed to flow freely and former bootlegger Remy Marco(Robinson)decides to go legit, but after four years he faces a money problem. His beer tastes so foul that no one wants to drink it...even legally. He renames his beer and his brewery is about to be taken by the bank...time to take a trip to the vacation house. Headaches don't go away easily when you find four corpses of former enemies in a room upstairs. They are remnants of a gang that robbed a syndicate of bookies. Its really interesting that Marco's daughter(Jane Bryan) is home from school abroad and her new boyfriend(Willard Parker) is a new state trooper...and Marco hates cops, period.This fast paced comedy also stars:Ruth Donnelly, John Litel, Joe Downing, Edward Brophy and Bobby Jordan. A fun look at a different side of tough guy Robinson.
