ma-cortes
Powerful portrait of the rise and fall of a nasty mobster extraordinarily performed by Edward G Robinson . A heinous and villain hoodlum named Rico (Edward G. Robinson) moves from the country to the big town and joins Sam Vettori's gang along with his fellow Joe Massara (Clark Gable was originally considered for the part but Jack L. Warner decided that Gable's ears were too big, and the role went to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. instead) to rise up through the ranks of the city underworld . Soon he becomes the boss of the mobsters and known as Little Caesar, and gets closer to the great gangster Pete Montana (Ralph Ince) and Big Boy (Sidney Blackmer) . The character of Cesare Enrico Bandello is not, as widely believed, based on Al Capone. Instead, he is based on Salvatore "Sam" Cardinella, a violent Chicago gangster who operated in the early years of Prohibition . And the role of Joe Massara was based on actor George Raft, who was associated with Owney Madden, the man who organized the taxi racket in New York City. The movie results to be one of the great mobsters pictures , and an expertly directed film that made Edward G Robinson a superstar . Despite the film's huge success, the book's author, W.R. Burnett, was furious that no actual Italians were cast in the film . Classic gangster movie contains top-notch performances , intense drama , thrills , fast-paced , action , and a shocking final . Magnificent Edward G Robinson in the title role as a snarling and ominous gangster . In one scene, Edward G. Robinson had to fire a pistol while facing the camera , try as he might, he was unable to keep his eyes open each time he pulled the trigger . Producer Hal B. Wallis originally auditioned Edward G. Robinson for the supporting role of Otero -played in the film by George Stone- before deciding he was perfect as Rico . Although The Doorway to Hell(1930), a gangster film released by Warner Bros. in 1930 was a big hit at the time, most sources consider Little Caesar to be the film which started a brief craze for the genre in the early 1930s. The "Forward" that now appears on the beginning of the film was added for the 1954 re-release of Little Caesar and The public enemy (1931) as a combination package.The character Diamond Pete Montana was modeled on Jim Colosimo, who was murdered by Al Capone; and "The Big Boy" was based on corrupt politician William 'Big Bill' Thompson, Mayor of Chicago. The underworld banquet sequence was also based on a real event - a notorious party in honor of two gangsters, Charles Dion O'Bannion and Samuel J. "Nails" Morton, which received unfavorable coverage in the Chicago press. This First National Vitaphone early talking picture was well directed by Mervyn LeRoy and ready for release in December 1930, but Warner's brass felt it was not a Christmas picture , it officially debuted at the Strand Theatre in New York City on 9 January 1931. It ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Gangster" in June 2008.
AaronCapenBanner
Mervyn Leroy directed this early gangster picture that stars Edward G. Robinson as Rico, a tough-minded man who is determined to make something of himself, and so he, along with his friend Joe Massara(played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) goes to the big city, where they join a gang, and Rico quickly rises to the top, taking it over, and calling himself Little Caesar. He then sets his sights on a bigger gang, but after a high-profile assassination, Rico finds that despite his power and wealth, his violent lifestyle will catch up with him in the end... Robinson is the whole show here, so memorable is his performance that it makes up for the stilted nature of the picture.
ElMaruecan82
In 1930, Prohibition was still depriving the lives of American citizens from one of their most beloved leisure: drinking. At the same time, Hollywood started to make talking movies, as to satisfy the thirst for a new kind of entertainment. While technology is more responsible for the talkies' success, is it really a coincidence that the most preeminent genre of the 30's was the gangster film, that the first sounds people would hear in theaters would be horns, screeching tires, firing machine guns, screaming women, and gunshots, or that the most memorable bits of dialogs would speak thought- provoking statements about American ideals? "Little Caesar" is a landmark that can't be analyzed outside its historical context: the climax of both the Prohibition and the criminal violence it generated. The Volstead Act was responsible for the rise of emblematic gangster figures such as Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and naturally: Al Capone, probably the only criminal to become a cultural icon, an ambiguity that is the very essence of the anti-heroic figure. And when you think of it, from Michael Corleone to Tony Montana, the most memorable movie gangsters have never been totally evil, amoral or spiritless. And all these underworld's icons owe something to Edward G. Robinson's performance as "Little Caesar", an Italian-American criminal who wants his share of the American Dream, and wants it badly. Little, as the title suggests, the character is remembered for his short stature and a "cat-fish mug" according to IMDb, while I perceive more more of a baby face, especially in the unforgettable close-up in the scene when he confronts his friend, Joe Massara, played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Anyway, as ingrate as his appearance is, Little Caesar embodies the syndrome of another famous emperor, Napoleon, the little guy who wants to conquer the world, which makes his Italian background more significantIndeed, whether Italian in Coppola and Scorsese's epic crime films, Cuban in "Scarface" or Jewish in "Once Upon a Time in America", there has always been a strong dichotomy implied between the growth of a new demographic category: young, male, eager to grow and to live the American dream and the subsequent rise of criminal activities. Little Caesar totally embodies the most pervert side of the American Dream, as if the status of emigrants was a sordid alibi for their ruthless ambition, as if America was a virgin land waiting for newcomers to make up for their lost years, when the WASP took all the legal areas, well, quoting Tony Montana's anatomical metaphor about Miami would be eloquent enough.And as a foreigner, Little Caesar knew all the tricks of the American Dream and lived his life as if he was trapped in a jungle and moved by a sort of survival instinct where the fittest is the one who gets bigger than the enemy and kills him. Maybe "Little Caesar" reveals the Darwinian impulses of criminal, surviving in an environment that maintains the 'good' citizens in a state of slavery while only the outlaws can free themselves, by being strong, tough and not undergo the unfair decisions from the Law, starting from the Prohibition itself. Rico's defying attitude is the driver of his status as a hero from the wrong side, hence his place as one of the first cinematic antiheroes.And we take him seriously because he doesn't enjoy himself; he's never gratuitously sadistic or violent. Forget about women and booze, cigar is his only weakness. And since cinema is more an art of imagery than ideas, the cigar became a synonym of toughness, leadership and Alpha-male charisma, which is also at the same time the very symbol of the capitalistic figure. The power of Robinson's performance is to supposedly base a performance on a figure like Al Capone, with whom he share similar facial features, yet still carry some respectability of its own, and become a landmark in terms of influential performances, only equaled by James Cagney in "The Public Enemy", who plays a totally different character.There's even more to say about Robinson's performance which is more three-dimensional than most of today's criminal portrayals, his attitude towards his friend's romance betrayed a more ambiguous personality, slightly hinted by the interactions with his effeminate sidekick. But what the 'seemingly' homosexual undertones show is a man so diluted in his own ego he wouldn't let himself distracted by a relationship, a man who tries so much to play it tough that he can't hide the fact that he can become as soft as his enemies were, and it's the film's pivotal moments of the film, when he realizes he can't kill his friend, to which the sidekick retorts by calling him "soft": the Emperor started slipping. Like Tony Montana in "Scarface", Little Caesar's weakness is his heart and his demise is as immediate as his rise was swift. And as a man who succeeded by the ego, he'd perish by it, by calling him a coward, the Irish Detective Flaherty brought him back from the slums to the spotlights, for the ultimate confrontation. And I'm sure that for the first time, viewers rooted for the villain and not just because the better actor played him. Through the unforgettable "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?", we can feel that Rico had such a high opinion of himself, he couldn't even believe he would die, and that's what his eyes betray: disbelief. That's what most gangsters are: big egos, we admire first and feel sorry for at the end. And the end of Rico coincided with the birth of the antihero, and if by many aspects, the film has dated a little bit, some parts are grainier than others, and many performances, including the histrionic cop leave a lot to desire, there's no doubt that "Little Caesar" carried by a bravura performance from Edward G. Robinson, planted the first seeds of the gangster film … see?
