Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Cristi_Ciopron Who could establish if Armstrong's Mahlon K. is a good role? The actor looks so much his role, and so well, it's puzzling. Dependable supporting cast: Kit Guard and Al Hill; as often with the Pre-Code movies, the script is fundamentally right, whether it's masterful and crafty, or not, but the main thrust exists, and the scenes are leisured, unhurried, as the nice one with Al Hill being menaced, threatened by Paul Hurst. Because the players are unaccustomed with the new asset (i.e., the sound), the movie gains an uncanny dignity; you can feel at once the inexperience and the eagerness. I enjoyed the scene with the orchid. The movie is about the gangsters and about the glamorous world, but more about the gangsters, and we come to know him better than his girlfriend. The romance is one side of Mahlon's existence, as is his presence at the charity, etc.. So, the movie's title gives the right idea about its content. The characters' psyches aren't very profoundly probed, nor is the story echoing meaningful, but it's a way they play the gangsters, as when Squid denies, in front of the racketeer, having witnessed Gus' move, a gnarled style that has been neglected or abandoned later, a powerhouse and streetwise vehement style, sometimes coarse or pompous (the initial scenes with Mahlon), a bombastic roughness of the guttersnipes; the characters' names are nicely chosen: Mahlon, Rhoda, Mehaffy, Squid ….The cast is better than the script; I liked the writing of the scenes, yet the plot is somewhat generic, and the romance could of been deepened more thoroughly (a divorcée rebel girl is ready to marry a racketeer when her passion, a drunkard musician, seems to wish to leave her).Hedda Hopper does her role of cheeky casualness, a nonchalant, worldly and domineering lady, a situation when someone's delusions of appeal serve the role.Kit Guard plays the henchman, Gus.

bkoganbing The Racketeer was destined to be one of Carole Lombard's earliest sound films, it was done for Pathe Pictures with whom she was with in 1929. With the title it has, you might be thinking its a gangster flick, the kind Warner Brothers would soon be making.If that's what you think forget it. This is one dull and plodding melodrama involving a love triangle between alcoholic violinist Roland Drew, gangster Robert Armstrong, and former society débutante Carole Lombard who left her husband and all his money for Drew before the film began and is now tied to a drunk.If you think you will see the bright comedienne of My Man Godfrey and so many films with Fred MacMurray, forget that also. Like just about everyone else at this time, Lombard and the rest of the cast overact dreadfully. I'm surprised and she might have been also that she had a career and survived this film.Best in the cast is Paul Hurst who plays a beat cop, but is determined to bring in Armstrong and displays some initiative and ruthlessness in trying to do just that.Like what the Abbe Sieyes said about the French Revolution, Carole Lombard can state her major accomplishment from The Racketeer is that she survived it.

Claudio Carvalho In 1929, in New York, the powerful mobster Mahlon Keane (Robert Armstrong) meets the bankrupted former socialite Rhoda Philbrooke (Carol Lombard) in a poker game of a benefit fund-raiser party and helps her to cheat the game. Rhoda had divorced from her wealthy husband to stay with her alcoholic lover, the violinist Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew), and is financially broken. Mahlon feels attracted by Rhoda and helps her to recover the health of Tony and promotes his career. Later Mahlon proposes Rhoda, who accepts to marry him, but a couple of hours before their marriage in a yacht, Tony tells Rhoda that he loves her. While Rhoda thinks how to tell Mahlon about her love for Tony, a tragedy happens in Tony's dressing room."The Racketeer" is one of the first American features in the sound age, and has a dated melodramatic story of a triangle of love composed by a gangster, a musician and an ex-socialite. This film is only reasonable, having silly dialogs, average theatrical performances, terrible quality of sound with a terrible voice intonation of the cast and the images have not been restored, therefore is full of problems. The Brazilian DVD released by London Distributor, has an additional problem, with the bad quality of subtitle in Portuguese, full of mistakes, without synchronization and using capital letters in the first letter of every sentence. "The Racketeer" is only recommended as a curiosity of the transition between silent and sound features. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Gangster" ("The Gangster")

elginbrod2000 I enjoyed this 66 minute film despite the overly theatrical delivery of almost every line. One gets the impression that this film was directed by an eighth grade home economics teacher. Despite this annoying drawback, the story is sweet and there is a genuine chemistry between the leading lady, Carole Lombard, and the head gangster played by Robert Armstrong.Carole Lombard is attractively photographed and has a large amount of quality screen time here. She is pulled in two directions by two men who genuinely care for her. One is a concert violinist who we are introduced to early on in the picture as a man who has been reduced to nothing more than a bum in the gutter. The other is the suave gangster who for the first time has found something in this life greater than himself. The question is: who needs her most and who truly loves her? And in what direction will fate allow her to go.The dramatic ending will tug at your heart-strings. This was Carole's last picture for Pathe studios.