One thing bothers a lot about the Warner Brothers of this era was their beating to death of the gangster film genre. This isn't a gangster film, although I almost didn't watch it, since I thought it probably was. That would have been a shame, because it is a very interesting film.
A second that bothers me is not the film, but so many of the reviews here on IMDb. Is the film racist, or is is portraying the reality of the time? I'm not sure...I wasn't born until 14 years after this film was made. And unless you're in your 80s, you weren't alive yet to know the tenor of race relations in the 1930s in L.A. Stop making so assumptions based on today's trends. My guess is that it's just portraying the reality of that era.
One thing I like very much about this film is that quite a few scenes -- far more than you would see in most films of the era -- were filmed on-locations; very interesting! Here we have a young Latino fellow in Los Angeles who has graduated from night school for a degree in law, but then gets in a fight in the court room during his first case and is disbarred. He heads back south of the border and becomes a bouncer in a cheap casino owned by an American with a surprisingly young and attractive wife. The Latino fellow transforms the low-grade casino into a top notch nightclub and becomes a partner. But then, the lovely wife gets angry when she can't get an affair started with the young Latino, so she kills her husband and begins a slow descent into madness. When that still doesn't get the affair going, she accuses the Latino fellow of planning the murder, but she goes nuts on the stand and the case is thrown out of court. Meanwhile, the White woman he has fallen in love with rejects him due to his ethnicity, and during a quarrel she runs into the road and is hit by a car and is killed. The Latino fellow decides to return to his L.A. roots and sells his nightclub to endow a law school. Okay, it all works pretty well, but the ultimate message seems to be that Latinos in southern California can never really "make it". Of course, at that time, that may have been true.
Paul Muni -- as the young Latino fellow -- is excellent here, and other than his most famous bio pic, this is the first film of his I have seen. You might think this was one of Bette Davis' earliest roles, but actually it was her 25th film...and a humdinger of a role for her! Margaret Lindsay is wonderful as the woman who ultimately spurns Muni. Eugene Palette is a hoot -- as usual -- in his role as the partner in the casino. Robert Barrat looks slightly out of place as the padre, but does nicely with the role. And, I should make mention of Soledad Jiminez, who plays Muni's mother; I can't say she was a wonderful actress, but she looked the part and played many such roles in her career.
Highly recommended, this is a very interesting film, both plot-wise and in terms of cultural history.
A second that bothers me is not the film, but so many of the reviews here on IMDb. Is the film racist, or is is portraying the reality of the time? I'm not sure...I wasn't born until 14 years after this film was made. And unless you're in your 80s, you weren't alive yet to know the tenor of race relations in the 1930s in L.A. Stop making so assumptions based on today's trends. My guess is that it's just portraying the reality of that era.
One thing I like very much about this film is that quite a few scenes -- far more than you would see in most films of the era -- were filmed on-locations; very interesting! Here we have a young Latino fellow in Los Angeles who has graduated from night school for a degree in law, but then gets in a fight in the court room during his first case and is disbarred. He heads back south of the border and becomes a bouncer in a cheap casino owned by an American with a surprisingly young and attractive wife. The Latino fellow transforms the low-grade casino into a top notch nightclub and becomes a partner. But then, the lovely wife gets angry when she can't get an affair started with the young Latino, so she kills her husband and begins a slow descent into madness. When that still doesn't get the affair going, she accuses the Latino fellow of planning the murder, but she goes nuts on the stand and the case is thrown out of court. Meanwhile, the White woman he has fallen in love with rejects him due to his ethnicity, and during a quarrel she runs into the road and is hit by a car and is killed. The Latino fellow decides to return to his L.A. roots and sells his nightclub to endow a law school. Okay, it all works pretty well, but the ultimate message seems to be that Latinos in southern California can never really "make it". Of course, at that time, that may have been true.
Paul Muni -- as the young Latino fellow -- is excellent here, and other than his most famous bio pic, this is the first film of his I have seen. You might think this was one of Bette Davis' earliest roles, but actually it was her 25th film...and a humdinger of a role for her! Margaret Lindsay is wonderful as the woman who ultimately spurns Muni. Eugene Palette is a hoot -- as usual -- in his role as the partner in the casino. Robert Barrat looks slightly out of place as the padre, but does nicely with the role. And, I should make mention of Soledad Jiminez, who plays Muni's mother; I can't say she was a wonderful actress, but she looked the part and played many such roles in her career.
Highly recommended, this is a very interesting film, both plot-wise and in terms of cultural history.