Word: gangsterisms
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Convenient for occupational melodrama, with which the cinema is trying to replace last year's gangster cycle, was the career of Lawyer William J. Fallen. Lawyer Fallen ably defended innumerable criminals, then defended himself when he was accused of bribing a juror. He was noted also as a libertine and toper. He was the hero of a gaudy biography by Gene Fowler, The Great Mouthpiece (TIME, Oct. 26, 1931). First cinema based on the career of Lawyer Fallen two years ago was For the Defense, with William Powell. Elmer Rice's play, Counsellor-at-Law, had elements...
...named Tom Corrigan, inclined to making cynical observations on the discrepancies between justice and the law. One evening he sees a girl (Helen Twelvetrees) brought into court on a vice charge. He defends her, makes her his mistress. Like Lawyer Day, Lawyer Corrigan is thick with thieves. A political gangster (William Boyd) helps him to be made state's attorney. When called to defend a murderess, Corrigan remarks, "She'd be free tonight if I were her lawyer." Then he obtains a confession and conviction...
Scarface (United Artists?Howard Hughes) is a grisly, exciting gangster picture, based in part upon the career of Alphonse ("Scarface," "Snorkey") Capone. Its vicious hero, one Tony (Paul Muni), ingeniously wins the affection of a public enemy named Lovo (Osgood Perkins) by murdering his own superior. He then embarks upon a career of informal executions, becoming invaluable to Lovo and attractive to Lovo's Poppy (Karen Morley). Presently dissension occurs between Tony and Lovo. Tony wipes out Lovo and leaves for Florida with Poppy...
Scarface contains re-enactments of famed gangster crimes like the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago, the hospital shooting of Jack ("Legs") Diamond, the siege of Francis ("Two-Gun") Crowley. Good shot: Tony's sister, when he is overcome by remorse for having killed the man she loves, begging him to defend himself from the police...
...social standing. . . . But the best philosophy I ever heard can be expressed in three words - 'don't kid yourself.' That realization helped me to cure my Depression." Because clergymen objected, a playlet called "Does Crime Pay?", starring plump Mrs. Alice Schiffer Diamond, widow of Gangster Jack ("Legs") Diamond, was dropped from the bill of Billy Watson's burlesque show when it reached Paterson, N. J. Protested Actress Diamond : "My theatrical act teaches a great moral lesson - everyone, young and old, who sees it realizes that crime is futile and that the old straight and narrow path...