Word: gangsterisms
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...carting him off to prison, the gang's trigger man catches up with him. This leads to the most gruesome of the movie's assortment of gruesome scenes: Scott and the kindhearted girl (Dorothy Malone) who has hidden him are parked on a lonely roadside while a gangster cheerfully digs a grave to dump them in. A gentler touch: Scott shoving a gunman over the edge of a building. Flaxy Martin is not the wickedest of Warner's gangster sagas, but its leading lady sets some kind of a record for doing dirt...
Except for the Lindbergh case, in which Irey got Hauptmann by tracing registered ransom bills, the technique was always much the same: to determine the size of the gangster's loot, then match it against his income-tax returns. By 1940, Irey had uncovered $476,573,129 in tax deficiencies (the Philadelphia Inquirer's late Publisher Moe Annenberg made the largest single contribution to the Treasury: $8,000,000). At one time nearly two-thirds of all federal prisoners were men jailed as a result of Irey's patient, adding-machine methods...
Hollow Triumph (Eagle-Lion) is the rather listless story of a gentleman-gangster (Paul Henreid) who puts himself on the spot by robbing a gambling joint. He is menaced from every side by bullets until he finds shelter under the long, protective arm of coincidence. He discovers that he has an exact double in town-a Dr. Bartok, psychoanalyst. Jittery Gangster Henreid decides to murder Psychoanalyst Henreid and take over his job beside the couch. He learns, through hard experience, that neuroses can be as dangerous as guns. Joan Bennett is the doctor's pretty, hard-boiled secretary...
...many years, several public-spirited organizations have been trying to save American kiddies from the insidious influences of comic books, gangster movies, and radio thriller serials. The main attack has centered on the funnies and films, because radio is sexless, and therefore harder to get a generally tolerant public excited about. But the kiddy serials are nevertheless riddled with the same sort of grotesque materials that parents and teachers regard with horror in other mediums. And they are just as fascinating...
Back Streets of Paris (Jacques Feyder-Film Rights International). Basically, this is merely a French-made gangster melodrama, but it has some wry Gallic nourishes. Example: the downtrodden Cinderella of the film (Andrée Clement) is not rewarded with the Prince Charming (Jacques Dacqmine), who runs off with a flashy tart. Instead, she gets a profitable little hotel business, and seems perfectly content with the bargain...