st-shot Before his breakout role in Little Caesar Edward G. Robinson gets some practice in as a thug nightclub owner in The Widow from Chicago. Featuring the limited Alice White in the lead Robinson has little trouble in garnering all the attention in this mediocre crime pic.Polly Henderson's policeman brother is murdered while working undercover. She swears to get the man behind his murder and goes undercover herself as the wife of a supposedly dead mobster. Getting a job at Domenic's club she begins to make headway when the faux widow's husband turns up breathing.Whites high pitched squeal of a voice and cutesy mannerisms are cloying within the first reel leaving it up to Murray Hamilton and Robinson to inject the proceedings with a feeling of dead seriousness which Edward G does with aplomb in a supporting sporting role. In it you see the first vestiges of the cock sure Rico, a touch less subdued but every bit imposing. But with White occupying most of the screen time The Widow from Chicago deserves no sympathy.

drednm Alice White stars in this 1930 crime drama that also boasts an early starring role for Edward G. Robinson. He plays a nightclub owner and bootlegger; she plays the widow. She shows up in his club looking for work and claiming to be the widow of a gangster (Neil Hamilton) who was killed when he jumped off a train in an attempt to escape the cops. In reality she's the sister of the cop who was tracking Hamilton. Now she's out to track down her brother's killer.Smart dialog and solid story here with White in a slightly different role. Although she masquerades as a floozie she's really a pretty smart cookie as she leads to police to her brother's killer. Although the setting is a nightclub, White does not do a musical number (perhaps cut from the final print?) as she usually does in her talkies.Although White was not an actress in the way Bette Davis or Joan Crawford were, she's got a great screen presence and holds her own here in scenes with the great Robinson. Hamilton is also solid as the undead gangster who returns to cause problems for White.Co-stars include Frank McHugh, Harold Goodwin (as the brother), Betty Francisco, Brooks Benedict, and Anne Cornwall and Dorothy Mathews as the dance hall babes.Worth a look.

arthursward And I'll support that conclusion. However, I must preface my commentary by acceding to a predilection for Alice White's performances. I adore her no-apologies-for-pert, straight-ahead style that was the antithesis of 'real' actors who rolled their R's and eyes at every opportunity. We are introduced to Polly (Alice White) and Jimmy (Harold Goodwin) as new tenants by the neighbors' gossiping. Are they married? The question remains unanswered until just before Jimmy, the precinct's newbie detective, leaves for work. The clever script puts a smile on your face just as Jimmy waves at his sister, Polly from the street, and becomes a drive-by shooting victim. The scripts' powerful counterpoints and wit are enhanced by director Edward Cline's smart pacing and Sol Polito's brilliant photography. The avenging Polly, masquerades to mob boss Dominic (Edward G. Robinson) as the widow of a dead associate of the gang. But she becomes trapped in his office when the 'widow's husband returns from the dead. When Dominic goes out to meet him, we are left with a great insert of the edge of the office door. Slightly ajar, we watch it in anticipation while Dominic meets Polly's 'dead' husband. Will she make a break for it? Will Swifty confront her? Your mind races as the camera holds on that door. It's bravura filmmaking, and Cline keeps it coming. By the way, Polly embraces her 'husband' whispering "go along, I'm on the spot". The excitement's just beginning, Swifty is only too happy to go home with his 'wife'.Neil Hamilton handles his role as Swifty Dorgan with effective menace, and Polly goes from being on the spot in Dominic's office to being in a spot behind her own (now locked) door. Frank McHugh's got a fine bit as one of Dominic's hentchmen 'Slug', and advises his fellow thug, Mullins, to give up the girl he can't get along with. Slug's smugness melts, however, when Mullins returns the girl's key only to discover the key is to Slug's girlfriend's apartment.Earl Baldwin's script has plenty of sparks left, and Polito takes the shootout in the dark to a new level when a spotlight is introduced: not only being shot at, but everything its prowling eye touches gets killed. You'll wonder why Little Caesar is famous after seeing this terrific gangster film.

frankfob Edward G. Robinson and Alice White star in this early Warner Bros. gangster flick. White is the sister of a murdered policeman, and she sets out to find her brother's killer by impersonating the widow of a dead gangster and cozying up to Robinson, a rackets boss. There are even more complications in this, frankly, badly directed film (Edward F. Cline fared much better as a comedy director at Universal later in his career), several of the supporting performances are either weak or hammy, the film tends to meander and has quite a few dead spots, but Robinson and the unjustly neglected (and very sexy) Alice White do quite well despite the convoluted plot. It's main interest is as a precursor to the classic WB '30s gangster films, and you can see the famous Warners style emerging. It's just a pity that the film itself is so mediocre. It's worth a look to see where Warners was going with the gangster genre, and you can see a lot of Joan Blondell in the vivacious Alice White, but other than that, it's nothing really special, and doesn't hold a candle to Robinson's later work in "Little Caesar" and "Smart Money," which came out a year later.