THE LAST GANGSTER
US, 1937, 81 minutes. Black and white.
Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Rose Stradner, Lionel Stander, Douglas Scott, John Carradine, Sidney Blackmer, Grant Mitchell, Alan Baxter.
Directed by Edward Ludwig.
The Last Gangster looks like an Edward G. Robinson gangster film – and it is, after presenting him as an Al Capone-like gangster leader and imprisoning him because of tax evasion, the film veers to a father-son drama. The Last Gangster does not look like an MGM production which it is, rather like a Warner Bros film which stars Edward G. Robinson.
Robinson gives his usual strong performance in the central role, especially when he gets out of prison after ten years and goes to reassemble his gang who turn on him and torture him to find where his money has been hidden. They abduct his son whom he has never met and who doesn’t know about him. He tries to bond with his son – and in a somewhat noble gesture moves away from his son at the end, only to be killed by a vengeful gangster whose brothers he had murdered earlier.
James Stewart appears in an early role – also with a moustache – in the role of the newspaper reporter who takes pity on the gangster’s wife, marries her, brings up the boy as his own. Rose Stradner is the wife, a European actress who did not make many films. Douglas Scott is the boy – rather prissy and not particularly sympathetic. Various character actors appear including Lionel Stander and John Carradine in a small role.
The film was directed by Edward Ludwig, a veteran director of many small-budget action films.
1. The title, expectations? Edward G. Robinson as a gangster? The prologue and the indication about the 1920s and the role of gangsters and crime? The change in the 1930s?
2. MGM production? Black and white photography, musical score?
3. The introduction to Joe Krozac, arriving back in America, with Talya? His bravado, the likening himself to Napoleon? Curly and his lawyer coming to meet him? Setting up his empire again? The rivalry with the Kile brothers? The wedding invitation? His arranging for the killings? The photo in the paper – along with himself and his bride?
4. Joe and Talya, life together, her lack of English, his not telling her about his empire? Her collapse, her pregnancy? His arrest? His attitude, defiance, the tax evasion and his laughing at it? Interrogated? The headlines and his losing his case? Imprisonment?
5. Travelling across America, with the other criminals, their memories of him and his deals and his brutality? Arriving at Alcatraz? Life in Alcatraz, his work, the warden, the other prisoners? The ten years passing?
6. The journalists and their approaching Talya? Paul and his article? His defending Talya? Marrying her, taking care of the boy? His happy life with his wife and son over the years? The boy and his growing up, medal for outstanding service, going on trips with his father, learning from his father? The knowledge that Joe would eventually get out, the hiding and being ready for it?
7. Paul, his work at the paper, seeing the information about Joe getting out, Talya realising it?
8. Joe, getting out, with Curly, the group turning on him, humiliating him, torturing him, making him walk? Wanting to know where the money was? Abducting the boy, making him walk? His stances? Letting them go? The information about the police confronting them and their deaths?
9. The boy, his stances, his bewilderment about Joe calling him his son? Thinking that there was something wrong with him? Their time together, in the rain, camping? Joe and his reaction, attitude of vengeance towards his wife? Not wanting to hear the boy call Paul his father?
10. Arriving home? The confrontation? Joe and putting the boy to bed? Seeing the devotion he had to his parents, his explanation? His leaving?
11. Joe, the confrontation with Kile? The use of shadows, the shooting, the deaths? The last gangster?
12. A 1930s perception of the gangsters of the 1920s and the aftermath?
