ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

akasbarian Above-average gangster film, typical of the '30s genre. Fun watching, but nothing too extraordinary...EXCEPT some of the close-up scenes involving Ricardo Cortez. With the help of some great lighting, his eyes and facial expressions are chillingly sinister! In particular, there is his private showdown with Armitage (Robert Strange)...simply unforgettable.I also found Cortez's expressions to be reminiscent of Pacino in the Godfather (or should i say the reverse)...i wonder if Pacino studied this film at some point.Bette Davis clearly showed great acting chops, but her role was fairly typecast and thus limited her range somewhat. George Brent did just fine...his role was probably the most straightforward. The supporting cast was outstanding...lots of subplots, double-crosses, and idiosyncrasies that enriched the story.

blanche-2 George Brent is a "Special Agent" in this 1935 crime drama also starring Bette Davis and Ricardo Cortez. The original story was written by a newspaperman and is most likely based on the Al Capone case. Brent plays a reporter, Bill Bradford, but his job is a cover -he's an undercover Federal agent after a crook, Alexander Carston (Cortez) for tax evasion. His entrée into the books of Carston's organization is the bookkeeper, Julie Gardner, with whom he's also in love. After the case is built, Carston is arrested and Julie is taken into protective custody. But can she really be protected against Carston? This is a fairly routine drama with good acting and some solid action. Davis is very young and blonde here, and not as glamorized as she is in other early films - "The Man Who Played God," "Fashions of 1934" or "Ex-Lady" but nevertheless quite pretty. She's a little too classy to be a mob bookkeeper; as the character, however, she exhibits intelligence, which certainly Julie would have. Brent is his usual pleasant self as Bill, and Cortez is a sinister gangster.The only part of the film that gave me a giggle was the riddling of men with machine guns as they continued to stand until their bodies must have had more holes than Swiss cheese before dramatically falling. Certainly they would have been dead long before the 100th bullet.Interesting for early Davis and the always good Cortez.

lastliberal Bette Davis was already an established actress when she did this film with 27 movies under her belt, and an Oscar nomination for Of Human Bondage. She would win an Oscar for Dangerous the same year this film was released. This is a different Bette Davis than most of us are used to seeing. She was a cute blonde in this film and here acting ability was very evident even in this average gangster flick.This flick had a good story about trying to bring down a mobster (Ricardo Cortez) with a T-Man (George Brent) posing as a newspaper reporter. You have to suspend belief at some of the story, but it's not 2007! Brent and Davis would join forces later with Bogey and Ronald Reagan in the Oscar-nominated Dark Victory.

Arthur Hausner This crime melodrama is never dull and has some very exciting moments, although the action is improbable. It's well-paced with fine acting: young and beautiful Bette Davis is enjoyable to watch, but her sophistication seems a bit out of place while working for a hood; George Brent is as suave as ever; and Ricardo Cortez makes a good heavy, with lighting effects making him look more sinister. I also liked the acting of many of the supporting characters such as Robert Strange (who is a standout), J. Carroll Naish and Joseph Sawyer, as three of Cortez's murdering henchmen. Anyone who likes the genre should like this film.Martin Mooney, who provided the story on which this film is based, was a newspaper man and well aware that the government was sending noted racketeers up the river for income tax evasion. Al 'Scarface' Capone was indicted by a federal grand jury for that offense and spent eight years behind bars starting in 1931.