Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

utgard14 Grim and gritty pre-Code crime drama about a tough-as-nails police captain (Walter Huston) with a hard-on for wiping out crime. His brother (Wallace Ford) falls for a vampy bad girl (Jean Harlow). Through her, he gets involved with gangster Sam Belmonte (a miscast Jean Hersholt). This leads to an inevitable clash between brothers.Well-directed and well-written with solid acting, especially for 1932. Harlow is her usual alluring self. Huston is great in a part that is not very sympathetic, despite his being the protagonist. Early work by J. Carrol Naish as Hersholt's henchman, Cholo. Speaking of Hersholt, he was the only suspect casting. I'm not bashing Hersholt because he was a fine actor. But hearing him spout gangster slang through his thick accent was a little silly. Mickey Rooney has a small part as one of Huston's kids.Another great Walter Huston movie from the '30s. He made a lot of interesting ones. The aim of this particular film is to glorify cops not criminals. At least that's what the Herbert Hoover-signed message before the credits says. Yet the ultimate message of the movie is that in order for the cops to stop the criminals, they have to abandon the rule of law and take matters into their own hands. The final shoot-out between the gangsters and the vigilante cops is amazing.

kidboots While Warners was glamorizing the gangster ("Little Caesar", "The Public Enemy") the more conservative MGM turned to the police force to show the public that they also needed glorification. Even though her role in the unpopular "The Secret Six" was very secondary, Jean Harlow was rushed into it's companion piece "The Beast of the City" and her part as Daisy, the sensuous gun moll was far more memorable.The police were shown to do their duty even for an uncaring public - patrons in a speakeasy boo a raiding police group. About the only decent man in town is a police captain (Walter Huston was completely at home in police stations, prisons etc by 1932). "This town is as rotten as an open grave". Corruption even touches his family with his younger brother Ed (Wallace Ford) co-erced into crime because of his relationship with Daisy. The original story was an updating of W.R. Burnett's western novel "Saint Johnson" (1930) and it was made in the original western form as "Law and Order" (1932) - Huston also played the lead in that one as well.Police captain Jim Fitzpatrick's (Huston) failure to put racketeer Sam Belmonte (Jean Hersholt) behind bars causes him to be transferred to a quieter precinct. When he captures a pair of robbers he is promoted to police chief but his brother proves a real thorn in his side. Ed wants quick promotion and is not entirely honest - when asked to keep an eye on Daisy, he easily falls for her charms and starts to take payoffs from the gangsters she is involved with.What a seduction scene Harlow puts on - no ordinary red blooded male would be able to keep his head, certainly not a weakling like Ed. "That's not dancing - this is dancing"!!! Within minutes of meeting she is getting him drunk and seduces him with a sultry sexy dance that has him eating out of her hand. He thinks it's love but she knows exactly what she's doing. When he drunkenly tells her of an assignment he has - keeping an eye on a truck load of cash, she persuades him to fully join Belmonte's gang in stealing the shipment and his decision has repercussions for everyone. Like other reviewers I think the ending will shock but the biggest shock to me was the improvement in Jean Harlow's acting.Within ten years Wallace Ford was playing character roles but in 1932 he and Jean looked great together. It was hard to believe only the year before her acting in "The Public Enemy" was causing critics and the public to snigger, to say nothing of her harsh, trashy make up. In "The Beast of the City" she looked dazzling, acted in a natural way and got her first good notices. Mordaunt Hall, "The New York Times" - "Jean Harlow, the first of the platinum blondes, is a distinct asset to this film" and Irene Thirer of the "New York Daily News" - "Yep, the platinum blonde baby really acts in this one, mighty well"!!!

jbacks3-1 I love pre-code gangster movies! While Warner's is the indisputable king, MGM threw out all the stops in what appears as an attempt to go head to head with Warner's in making a crime drama. The results are remarkable. The stars here are the cops, something WB didn't focus on until 3 years later with G-Men. Walter Huston does a remarkable job as a police captain whose badge is on the rise but whose not afraid to get his hands dirty. His career is endangered by his reckless, irresponsible younger brother (well played by Wallace Ford, very early in his career), also a cop, who's got an eye for hard-bitten gangland moll Jean Harlow. There's several fantastic scenes: Harlow's memorable line-up, Harlow's hoochie koochie dance, running outdoor gun battles and an outrageous final face-to-face confrontation between the cops and Hersholt's gang in a restaurant. Judging by the 1930's police tactics depicted, it'd be a miracle if anyone on the force survived till retirement. Cops continuously run fearlessly headlong into hails of lead without a thought to taking cover. Look for a young Mickey Rooney and those twin girls (the 14-year old Crane twins) that briefly announced Hal Roach's opening Our Gang credits as Huston's kids. Huston probably drew upon this role for the extremely weird Gabriel Over the White House the following year. Seeing Jean Hersholt (by all accounts one of the most lovable guys in Hollywood--- yeesh, he's got a humanitarian award named in his honor) playing a greasy Capone-esquire crime lord stretches disbelief, but at this point in his career he was considered a 'heavy,' and image that would drastically change over the next decade when he became synonymous with kindly Dr. Gillespie. Beast of the City gives you all this plus creative pre-Miranda police interviewing techniques--- it's cool to see those great 1929-31 Lincoln police cars racing around chasing bad guys with their blaring one-way radios. Beast of the City ranks with the best of the genre and thanks to TCM and TiVo I've seen it a dozen times... this is excellent! Rates a 10!

Charles Herold (cherold) This is a classic example of those pre-Hays Code movies of the 30s, gritty and violent steeped in a general sort of sleazy atmosphere. Harlow is terrific, especially in her first scene with Wallace Ford; sexy, funny, tough. The movie is fast-paced and has a certain style and an engaging toughness.Entertaining most of the way through, it begins to run out of energy towards the end, and also out of intelligence. While the other comments here laud the stylish, incredibly violent ending, it's really dumb, contrived and completely unconvincing. For some reason people here are so taken with its visceral effect that they ignore its utter ridiculousness. But overall this movie holds up very well for something from the 30s, and is well worth watching.