LOVE THAT BRUTE
US, 1950, 86 minutes, Black and white dot
Paul Douglas, Jean Peters, Cesar Romero, Keenan Wynn, Joan Davis, Arthur Treacher, Peter Price, J C.Flippen.
Directed by Alexander Hall.
Love that Brute is a brief entertaining comedy in the style of the 1940s and 1950s. It is set 20 years earlier in the Chicago of the gangsters, during Prohibition, before the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre but echoing some of that violence.
Paul Douglas is the brute of the title, seemingly a big gangster power in Chicago, but actually rather a kind phony keeping up his reputation and keeping, in some comfort, in the basement of his home, all the gangsters he is reputed to have killed. Keenan Wynn is his enthusiastic aide.
The real gangster is played by Caesar Romero who introduces real violence but gets his comeuppance.
A lot of the comedy concerns a nanny, played by Jean Peters who has the opportunity to be prim, to sing a song in a club, and, however improbably, to fall in love with Paul Douglas. Peter Price is precocious as the little boy that the gangster hires in order to employ a nanny. Also in the cast are comedienne, Joan Davis, in a more subdued role than usual but also Arthur Treacher, very British and pompous butler in so many films, here doing the same role but actually in cahoots with the gangster and toting a gun!
Lightly entertaining.
1. An entertaining variety on gangster film is a romantic comedy?
2. The Chicago setting, 1928, the era of Prohibition and gangsters? The initial comment about the effect of Prohibition and ex-marking the spot for deaths of gangsters?
3. The cast, their reputations in the 1940s and 50s? The music, Chicago, Charleston, the singing of You Took Advantage of Me?
4. The opening, collecting money for charity, the gangsters, the shop owner, the shootout? Bugs and his putting flowers on the corpses? His alibi? Getting a reputation for Big It?
5. Big Ed, Paul Douglas’s style, trucking, his reputation, the deaths of gangsters? Sitting in the park, with the police? Being hit with the snowballs? Meeting Ruth? Thinking up the plan, organising Bugs to get a little boy to be his son, the interview with Ruth, hiring her? The romantic
touch? But audiences thinking of him as a big time criminal?
6. Ruth, from the small town, actress ambitions, looking after children, the interview, attracted by Harry Jr, controlling his cheekiness? Admiration
for Ed? Finding out the truth, her wanting to leave, taking Harry to the military school? Disappearing? And arranging for the auditions, the story of his selling the club, her song and success, friendship with maybe? The encounter with Pretty Willy, resisting him?
7. Pretty Willy, rivalry, making the agreement with Ed about collaboration? His own thugs?
8. The party, Willie and his thugs, the threat to Ed? Bug and his drinking, Ruth upset, his taking her downstairs, all the criminals being looked after, well fed, no one did? The getting the key, getting out? The effect on Willy and the rest, Mimi and her new husband, her old husband turning up?
9. Willie taking it, to execute him, the two criminals pretending that he was dead, his escape?
10. And, is plan, is funeral, the two criminals accusing Willy? His arrest? It confronting him in the washroom? Willie and his comeuppance?
11. Harry, acting like a thug in military school, going away with Ruth?
12. Bug, is disguise, picking up the criminals, helping Ed?
13. The boat and going back to Michigan, Ruth and Harry, Ed and his late arrival – and a happy ever after?
