Very well executed

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Copyright 31 October 1932 by Universal Pictures Corp. New York opening at the Winter Garden: 18 December 1932. U.K. release: 29 April 1933. Australian release: February 1933. 69 minutes. NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Avon, after a sensational off-Broadway debut on 22 April 1932 at Provincetown where it attracted record-breaking crowds and an unusually large volume of press attention. It ran 56 performances before transferring to the Avon where it lasted five weeks. It tells of a hotel bellboy (Elisha Cook Jr) who witnesses a murder by an influential crime czar (Harold Huber), who has the witness imprisoned and finally killed by the policemen who are supposed to be guarding him. Walter Hart and Michael Blankfort produced. Hart also directed. COMMENT: An exceptionally hard-hitting drama of judicial and political corruption, directed with surprising verve by Edward L. Cahn some years before he became a dreary director of inescapable, low-low-budget "B" movies. The cast is unusually strong, with stand-out performances from Tully Marshall as the cowering District Attorney, Louis Calhern as his corrupt assistant, Berton Churchill as the shifty mayor, Frank Sheridan as Police Commissioner Garvey, and Edward Arnold in the Harold Huber part. Superbly photographed by Karl Freund, Afraid to Talk is an excellent example of the socially-aware Hollywood movie of the early 1930s. One's only quarrel with Hollywood is the substitution of a happy ending for the play's more effectively dramatic downbeat curtain.Fortunately, it now appears that two endings were filmed. A happy one for American release and a version close to the stage play's for the European market.OTHER VIEWS: For some reason, this brilliant film noir has not made anybody's must-see list. Why? Too old? Hardly. Underworld (1927) is frequently cited as a classic example of the genre. Does this movie lack an appropriately noirish mood and atmosphere? Again, no. In fact cameraman Karl Freund is often quoted as a master of film noir lighting

A hotel bellhop witnesses a gangland murder and it almost rips the lid off a corrupt city ...almost...I must say this Universal gangster film made "Warner Bros cynicism" look like child's play. "The Czar Of Noir" Eddie Muller screened this and the same year's OKAY America (another Universal with Edward Arnold & Louis Calhern) for one of his "Noir City" film festivals as a classic example of "proto-noir". Some call it a "cheat" (Linden survives his hanging) but the ending, to me, is both jaded and hopeful, no mean feat -and Cahn's handling of the boy's "interrogation" still has the power to shock. It's the kind of story that'll never go out of style but it was also very topical. Although pains were taken to show the city in question wasn't New York (Linden tells his bride that his brother in NYC will help them make a new start), it was obvious to one and all at the time that it was a thinly disguised account of Mayor Jimmy Walker's corrupt reign. I also liked the Pre-Code sensibility on display; for example, when the bellhop and the elevator boy are taking the lift up to answer a call, the bellhop says, "I'll bet it's a dame" and when an effeminate man enters, the elevator boy forks over a quarter. And when one of the DA's men starts developing a conscience after the bellhop's beating, his co- hort snarls, "Whaddaya, going 'pansy' on us?" Simpering Sidney Fox and slinky Mayo Methot (a cross between Mae West and Baclanova) made for a nice distaff contrast. Fox (who, like Helen Twelvetrees, lost momentum and faded away when the Code came in) had been forgotten for decades until her name cropped up on Jack Paar's TONIGHT SHOW in the 60s when Jack was interviewing Bette Davis. They were discussing Davis' debut and Bette pointed out that it was actually Sidney Fox and not she who was THE BAD SISTER. Jack did a double take and gasped, "He was??" Sid, the mistress of both Laemmele Sr. and Jr., eventually committed suicide, just like Twelvetrees. This film was remade in East Germany as HOTELBOY ED MARTIN (1955) and one has to question the intent. It's obvious that the bellboy was "everyman" in America but in East Germany was the corrupt system a pluperfect example of capitalism at work? Hmmm...

Like Gangster Pictures? "Afraid To Talk" may be the best of this genre ever made. It tells a story of corruption in which traditional ethical guidelines are erased, in which there are no 'good guys' or 'bad guys'- they're all bad. It was directed in breathtaking and expert fashion by Edward L. Cahn, who directed many crummy B's of the 50's and 60's, and this must be his best picture.This is a pre-code gangster picture and by my reckoning better than "Public Enemy" or "Little Caesar" and despite the fact that there is no big name gangster-type star here.In addition, this is a Universal production, which goes against the 30's Hollywood slogan that, "If it's a Universal it's a Horror". Somehow this backwater studio produced this taut, well-acted, hard-hitting movie and did it in 72 minutes worth of film. The baddest of the bad guys is Louis Calhern, doing his dastardly best (or worst) as a treacherous Asst.District Attorney. In this corner, as a hapless hotel bellhop, is Eric Linden, who is married to munchkin-like Sidney Fox, in a thankless role as a housewife. Other career crooked politicians in the cast are Berton Churchill, Edward Arnold and Robert Warwick. Look for Mayo Methot, Bogie's first wife,as a gang moll.Afraid To Talk has never, to anyones or any publications knowledge, been shown on TV, and is not available in any format except 35MM. Do not miss it if the opportunity ever arises. I was also impressed to learn of the existence of political corruption elsewhere - I'm from N.J. and I thought we invented it.

This 1932 Universal feature, directed by action-crime specialist Edward L. Cahn, is a powerful study of urban corruption that is still timely today. Although only 72 minutes long (what a lesson today's filmmakers could learn in that department!!!), the film presents a complete urban society--law enforcement, judiciary, city administration, Mayor's office, organized crime--and a completely corrupt system. Eric Linden plays a bellhop at a swank hotel who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time his life to be destroyed although he has done nothing wrong. He's simply not "well connected." Simultaneously, corrupt cops conspire with a corrupt DA and a corrupt judge to keep graft-paying mobsters from suffering any harm. The society depicted in the film is corrupt, although there are honest and well-meaning individuals in any particular department who do their best to fight the corruption and to stand up for honest working people--however, those individuals are either destroyed or ignored or frozen out and they have little effect. As a pre-Code film, Afraid to Talk does not pull any punches, and its ending is something you'd never see in a corporate product playing the multiplexes here in 2002. The film moves at a fast pace, and the last five minutes perhaps move at TOO fast a pace, but in its own way the pacing helps to create the feel of inevitability that gives the film its unique fatalistic feel. I watched this with a group of 30 people, all of whom were speechless, realizing the sad, painful truths the film depicts. Afraid to Talk is a forgotten classic that packs a powerful punch, and still does today, 70 years after its initial release. If you ever get a chance to see it, don't miss it.