Best movie of this year hands down!

How sad is this?

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

New York City racketeer Robert Armstrong (as Mahlon "Mahl" Keane) helps beautiful divorcée Carole Lombard (as Rhoda Philbrooke) reform boozing Roland Drew (as Anthony "Tony" Vaughan), then wants her hand in marriage. She feels loyalty toward Mr. Armstrong, but Ms. Lombard apparently left her millionaire husband for Mr. Drew, who can play the violin beautifully when he's not drinking. This early sound film features some poor line delivery and a few good camera angles. Unfortunately, there is too much of the former and not enough of the latter.**** The Racketeer (11/9/29) Howard Higgin ~ Robert Armstrong, Carole Lombard, Roland Drew, Paul Hurst

This is one of those early talkies, so the filmmakers had not yet learned that a good film is in delivery of lines, motivation, and screenplay, not just the fact that the characters talk. I'm sure someday people will look at today's CGI movies and make equivalent criticisms. Robert Armstrong plays "the racketeer" here, but he is a kinder gentler gangster. At the beginning of the film he doesn't even "rub out" a member of his gang that has jumped bail on him - he just hands him over to the police so he can get his money back. James Cagney's Tom Powers would have never handled it this way.This sets up the story so that the racketeer seems quite human and likable. At a charity Monte Carlo night he catches a fallen woman Rhoda Philbrooke (Carole Lombard) cheating at cards and helps her cover up her crime. It turns out Rhoda is broke and really needs the money since she has left her husband and taken up with drunken musician Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew). Racketeer Mahlon Keane then goes to Rhoda's apartment and offers to help her. Mainly, he helps her "dry out" her drunken boyfriend and get him back on his feet. He even arranges for Tony to perform at a big concert. He also asks Rhoda to marry him. He doesn't do this as a condition of his good works, but Rhoda accepts his proposal because she feels beholden to him and she does genuinely like him. In the end, Rhoda realizes that she still really loves Tony but doesn't want to hurt racketeer Keane.The one thing that is never sufficiently conveyed to the viewer is why Rhoda loves Tony. He comes across as a drunken weakling that quite frankly seems very indifferent to Rhoda until the end of the film and doesn't seem to mind the fact that he is being helped by someone who is courting her. Probably the worst thing about this film is the unrestored condition it is in. I've seen prints from several companies and they are all in pretty bad shape. The audio is surprisingly good for an early talkie, but the video has lots of scratches in it and is somewhat washed out. The most interesting thing about this film is that it is one of Carole Lombard's very earliest film performances.

While watching the movie, it struck me that this might be the closest I've seen to a silent film actually put to dialog, the execution of which seems like actors from a high school play who simply studied their lines and recited them from memory. We know that the principal players were much better than that from their later work, so take it as part of the learning curve in going from silents to talkies. Add to that a bit of overacting, a prime example being the conversation between Mal (Robert Armstrong), Gus (Kit Guard) and Squid (Al Hill) when discussing Weber's murder. Armstrong does such a quick double take that it's comical, I caught myself in a knee jerk reaction laughing over the way the trio handled that scene.The story itself takes a while to unfold, and you don't get a sense of where things are going until well into the picture. Once you get there though, it turns out to be a fairly interesting ride, as Rhoda Philbrooke (Carol Lombard) finds her affections torn between gangster Mahlon Keane (Armstrong) and alcoholic musician Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew). I thought the poker scene in which Mal covers for Rhoda's dishonesty was cleverly done, initiating the relationship between the two.So let's see, a cab ride in New York City in 1929 for sixty five cents - not a bad bargain. Combine that with a letter that could be simply addressed using a person's name and the town in which he lives (Mahlon Keane, Roslyn, Long Island), and I find myself longing for those good old days. Rhoda's fox fur was a bit much though, don't you think? All in all, not a bad little entry on the sixteen disc "Mobsters" DVD set from Platinum Disc, this being one of the earliest of the films chronologically. Perhaps better viewed as a curiosity piece than for it's story, it's a fine example of an early talkie that gives one a good idea how the transition from silents was accomplished.

Well mounted, interesting story about suave racketeer Armstrong falling for impoverished deb Lombard, hampered a bit by the declamatory style of speaking any speech longer than three words and apparent immobility of microphones.