The Gangster (1947) Online

Smalltime gangster feels heat of competition, while romancing showgirl.

The most interesting thing about this crime drama are the visuals. Director Wiles goes all out with the stylized sets—the beachfront, the elevated train, the complex interiors, et al. I guess that's not surprising given his background as an art director. Apparently the King Brothers let him do pretty much what he wanted even on the small budget. The result is arty, but interesting. Then too, maybe you can take those stylized sets as mirroring Shubunka's inner state since he seems not too far from the nuthouse to begin with.

Sullivan certainly looks the gangster part. With his high cheekbones and gimlet eyes, he's scary even without the big scar. Plus, he's about as cold and animated as a block of ice. Sullivan's a fine actor so that is no accident, but the characterization seems too extreme to involve us in his fate. On the other hand, Loring's semi-pretty working girl comes across well, as does Belita's glamour girl with her odd facial resemblance to noir icon Gloria Grahame.

Like another reviewer, I'm a bit stumped by the seemingly unnecessary subplot with Morgan and D'Orsay. At first I thought the producers probably owed D'Orsay something so she got a tacked-on part. But then I noticed a parallel between Morgan's narcissistic Lothario and Sullivan's narcissistic gangster. Each appears imprisoned by his own limitations. Notice too that Morgan appears trapped by a jail-like fence following D'Orsay' rejection, a possible foreshadowing of Sullivan's downfall. Anyway, it's a thought.

But what I really like about the script is how Sullivan's indifference toward Ireland's desperate gambler brings about his own end— a nicely ironic touch. Also, note how the entrepreneurial criminal operations are tied in with corruption at higher levels of politics and big money. That seems unsurprising since both screenwriter Fuchs and the uncredited Trumbo were later blacklisted. In fact, noir appears the favorite genre of many leftist screenwriters, perhaps because of the potential for unhappy endings in a capitalist society.

Nonetheless, the movie as a whole comes across more as an object of contemplation than of audience immersion, but certainly continues to have its points of interest.

After the 1946 success of their million dollar musical noir SUSPENSE Monogram and their A grade production name ALLIED ARTISTS repeated their Barry Sullivan and Belita pairing plus many excellent sets and camera angles in a truly strange crime drama THE GANGSTER. Typical of their urban style and effort to make socially arresting films (BLACK GOLD, HIGH TIDE, and later PHENIX CITY STORY)I find I am quite haunted by this grim and emotional portrayal of a doomed big shot draining mentally and emotionally in his seaside square mile of crummy crim competition. It is almost as if everyone in this film acts as though he is sure they are trying to cause him to have a mental breakdown. Sullivan is a career criminal on the very edge of insanity brought on by just a plain lousy life of struggle, arguing and ratty behavior. His affair with the incredibly gorgeous Belita (of skating fame) is racked with his paranoia and melancholy at best. It is as if his falling in love with her is causing his mind to unravel and local thugs know it. THE GANGSTER is a very well made film and genuinely emotionally interesting. It is NOT as the title suggests, a 'gangster film' however it is quite a sad and tortured tale depicting the tragic shattering in slow motion of a big man's heart and mind as he realizes (or just thinks that) his world is crumbling. The scenes at the beach promenade with Belita dressed all in white offer the viewer genuine beauty. She is sublimely dressed and photographed all through this handsome film. In fact she reminded me of a young Gertrude Lawrence: Belita was British and a champion skater at a young age throughout the UK before coming to Monogram when only about 19 years old. She just died, in 2006 at about 82 years old. Barry Sullivan is a revelation. THE GANGSTER is one of the most interesting psychological dramas made, given that it is set within his mind, hence the fake looking world he inhabits (stylised sets etc). He has fallen in love and knows he doesn't deserve it or control it, thus causing emotional fright and mental collapse. What a topic! Good movie, this!

Here's a film I wish I could see again, even though it's a little too slow and talky for my tastes. It still was very interesting in spots.

Barry Sullivan and Belita both provide some great film-noir lines and the photography is pure film noir. Henry Morgan has interesting part although his role is minor and Sheldon Leonard (with hair) is notable. The only character who became annoying was Akim Tamiroff, as the scared soda shop owner.

The story, though, centers around Sullivan, who plays a man who doesn't trust anyone but would really like to find a woman he could trust. His outlook on humanity is brutal. It's so bad, it's almost funny. He reminded me of Lawrence Tierney in "Born To Kill."

This movie is an odd combination of film noir, melodrama and character study and is worth checking out, if you can find it.

***SPOILERS*** Odd kind of crime flick that has a director Fritz Lang "M" movie like look to it about a small time racketeer Shubunka, Barry Sullivan, who's about to be put out of business not by the law but his fellow criminals. With crime boss Connell, Sheldon Leonard, muscling in on Shubunka's territory in the Neptune Beach section of Brooklyn he's given a choice in joining the party, Cornell's mob, as a $80.00 a week collector or check out of town for good. But before Shubunka makes his exit Cornell want's him to hand over a list of those businesses on the beach who pay him off for protection.

Determined to hold on to his criminal enterprise Shubunka tried to recruit outside mob members, from Detroit Cleveland & Chicago, to keep Cornell and his mobster off his back but doesn't have the funds or cash to do it. As it turns out one of Shubunka's costumers and good friend ice cream and soda shop owner Nick Jammey, Akim Tamikoff, starts to crack under the pressure of the Cornell Mob and soon is forced, in order to save his life, to join them. Everything starts to fall apart for Shubunka's attempt to hold on to power and the final domino to fall is his girlfriend showgirl Nancy Starr, Belita. It's Nancy who after trying to get Shubunka to quit the crime business joined his bitter rival Cornell just to get away from the now paranoid and self destructive hood.

****SPOILERS**** What was the final nail in Shubunka's coffin was something that he was totally innocent of the brutal murder of his friend soda & ice cream owner Nick Jammey. It was accountant Karty, John Ireland, who embezzled his brother in law's business whom he worked for by fixing the books who went first to Shubunka, who turned him down cold, then to Jammey for cash to prevent from getting his legs broken. In a crazed and mindless assault on Jammey, who also refused to give him the money, Karty bash his head in and killed Jammey with a frying pan. With Cornell thinking that it was Shubunka who did in Jammey for joining his outfit he out a hit on him not realizing that Shubunka was totally innocent of his murder. By now Shubunka didn't care what happened to him and with the skies opening up and the rain pouring down on him he just meekly walked out on the dark and rain soaked streets of Neptune Beach to meet what fate has in store for him and thus get his final reward.

Belying the promise of tommyguns and bootleg hooch implied in its title, The Gangster instead unfolds as a patch of doomed urban poetry. Its script, by Daniel Fuchs from his novel Low Company (with, it's said, a hand from Dalton Trumbo), looks down loftily and detachedly at a handful of "little" people in a day-trippers' seaside resort way out in Brooklyn. Each character is a gear meshing precisely with other gears in a clockwork plot perhaps better suited to footlights than the kick-lights of film noir.

But its milieu and aspirations remain decidedly -- ostentatiously -- noir, from the baroque, shadowed ironwork of the El to the nighttime cloudbursts over the littered pavements. A soda fountain serves as the drama's central "set" into which self-styled racket kingpin Barry Sullivan frequently drops to flash his cufflinks. He's unable to confront the fact that his tiny crime empire is under siege and crumbling; he's too obsessed with his stage-struck mistress (Belita). Blind with jealousy and bloated with delusions of his invulnerability, he drifts impassively, almost catatonically, toward the fate that's already been meted out for him (the dramaturgy brings to mind Periclean Athens or Elizabethan London).

An unusually starry cast of noir players inhabits The Gangster, many in no more than walk-ons. Among them: Akim Tamiroff as the drugstore proprietor and Sullivan's partner; Harry Morgan as a soda jerk and Joan Lorring as cashier; Fifi D'Orsay, in an inexplicable role; John Ireland and Virginia Christine as a compulsive gambler and his despairing wife; Sheldon Leonard as Sullivan's predatory nemesis; Elisha Cook, Jr. and Charles McGraw as (what else?) thugs; even an uncredited Shelley Winters, fixing her face.

Plainly, there's a lot to admire in The Gangster, from the stagily constructed neighborhood to Louis Gruenman's melodramatic score. The trouble is that all the admirable bits and pieces don't quite jell into the organic flow of vital cinema, and the purple passages don't ring true as the street lingo of a raffish backwater called Neptune Beach.

... that is who Shubunka (Barry Sullivan) is in this crime drama/noir that is quite good given that it came from poverty row outfit Allied Artists, previously known as Monogram Pictures. What can you say about a film where time is taken to paint a detailed psychological profile of a gangster and gives the film a fine supporting cast, but there is no time taken to ensure that Shubunka's scar shows up on the same side of his face throughout the film. I saw it change sides at least once! But I digress.

Shubunka is in charge of "the rackets" on Neptune Beach in New York City. He makes good money, but he's blown it all on a girl he's infatuated with, night club performer Nancy Starr (Belita). His nervous partner is Nick Jammey, the owner of an ice cream parlor down on the beach. The cast in the ice cream parlor could be a movie all on its own. You have Harry Morgan as a 38 year old soda jerk who wants to get laid in the worst way but has the pedestrian lady's man skills of a 14 year old boy, you have an accountant (John Ireland as Frank Karty) who hangs out in the ice cream parlor hiding from his brothers-in-law. You see, he was in charge of their auto repair shop's books and stole 1300 dollars from them so he could gamble on the horses - ironically one of Shubunka's rackets. His in-laws intend to keep beating him up until he returns the money, and he can't go to the police because, after all, he's the embezzler! The young cashier (Joan Lorring as Dorothy) doesn't say much until the end, and I'll get to that later. Nick Jammey, the owner of the parlor and Shubunka's partner, is the loving husband of a hypochondriac wife and a real tower of jello.

The gist of the plot is that another racketeer is trying to muscle in on all of Shubunka's rackets (Sheldon Leonard as Cornell), and although Shubunka is remaining cool about all of this, he is distracted by imaginations that his girlfriend is unfaithful. He's driving her to distraction by following her and accusing her one minute, telling her he loves her and buying her gifts the next.

By his own admission to the ice cream parlor cashier, Shubunka's been on his own since age six, working for gangsters at age 9, bootlegging himself at age 14. With nobody to care for him from the earliest age, it is no wonder he has grown up to trust nobody and makes his living any which way he can. The oddest thing about this film is that Shubunka keeps talking about how ruthless he is, yet I never see him do anything that seems the least bit ruthless. He talks tough to other thugs who are ruthless themselves, and the only time he gets physical is with a goofy thug who wants to start something and deserved the slapping Shubunka gave him. And his rackets that are supposed to be "so dirty"? All I can see that is involved is gambling - an activity that requires willing participants.

I'm going to spoil this a little for you and talk about the final dialogue in the film. In the end, Shubunka rather owns up to what I've just said about him not really being that ruthless after all - he says his real downfall was not being ruthless enough, for not being a big enough loner, for not believing his instincts that all people are untrustworthy. Who does he speak these words to? In the end he finds himself cornered in the house of the ice cream parlor cashier, the only person he thinks he can trust. Her response, knowing his background, knowing his predicament? She tells him to get out of her house, that he deserves to die for his sins. She's young and untested in life, and unlike Shubunka she's had the benefit of a secure roof over her head, a loving father, and a full stomach her whole life and yet she's completely without empathy for a fellow human being who never had any of these things. In the end I found myself liking the gangster Shubunka far more than I liked this narrow minded youngster.

I'm leaving out some key details and ironies in the plot, so even though I have a spoiler warning I think you'll find plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested. This was a fine noir with a bunch of surprisingly gray characters for a production code era film, and I highly recommend it.

A big fish in a small pond finds his little world crumbling around him when a bigger fish swims into town. Opening with a monologue so misanthropic it could have been penned by Travis Bickle, this is a brutal and cynical film. Allied Artists reunited the stars of Suspense, Barry Sullivan and Belita, and the results are an improvement. Sullivan is cold and paranoid as the titular character, completely without trust or sympathy in anyone around him. Belita doesn't get to do any ice-skating this time around, but she is very good as his long-suffering gal, her devotion and sincerity eventually beaten down by his suspicions. I said earlier that I was looking forward to more of Joan Lorring, and I was glad to see her here. She doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, but she has a wonderful part to play in the end. There's a couple of subplots to consider. John Ireland is a desperate gambler whose story hooks into Sullivan's at a crucial point. The part with Harry Morgan as a self-imagined Romeo is a bit more superfluous but provide some nice character moments. Also some fine supporting bits by noir regulars Elisha Cook, Charles McGraw and Sheldon Leonard (and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Shelley Winters). The Louis Gruenberg score is occasionally overwhelming but mostly superb. And Paul Ivano's cinematography makes the most of the often cheap-looking sets, a lot of beautiful stylization, especially in the rain-soaked opening and closing sequences. Perhaps a little too self-conscious and stagy at times, but a very well-done, gloomy and sometimes poetic film.

As a film noir entousiasme, I don't rate this film on the top ten of the genre. But it has some moments. Some great shots by Cinematographer Paul Ivano that would deserve being laminated and hanged on a wall. I'll let you notice them. Also check out a young 24 years old Shelley Winter with a 10 seconds scene as a waitress.

In brief a movie carried by cinematography more than acting, by atmosphere more than by a script.

Occasionally Allied Artists was able to produce a first rate serious film unrelated to their usual formularized output.'The Gangster' is an unconventional crime picture that concentrates on the latter end of a racketeer's career,the effects rather than the causes of his persona,his neighborhood of operations,and the people who have been corrupted by his contact. As the protagonist Barry Sullivan essays a suitably morose,hardened individual driven by desperation to hold onto his rapidly crumbling kingdom.Desperate too are the pathetic bystanders who will be effected if this petty prince of rackets should fall to the machinations of a rival mob.Belita is a fashion socialite whom Sullivan uses but cannot love.Akim Tamiroff is terrific as the owner of a seemingly innocuous ice-cream parlor where Sullivan's influence has set in motion the tragic events that follow.Also well-cast are Joan Lorring as an adoring counter girl,John Ireland as a hooked gambler,Harry Morgan as an amusing soda-jerk,and every film buff's "favorite" New York thug,Sheldon Leonard as the leader of the new mob organization.

He got in early in his life, so now the only way out is a barrage of bullets in the back. He's Barry Sullivan, as tough a mob boss as you could ever find, and there's no Don Corleone politeness or Long Island mansion to hide in with the facade of legitimacy. There's nothing polite about the characters in this poetic but ultra gritty film noir that shows each of the main characters at their most vile, recreating New York City locations including an elevated train running, the Astor Place stop and an abandoned wharf where the violence gets pretty deadly. The fictional Neptune City is a unique replacement for similar beach communities like Coney Island and Atlantic City where corruption like this doesn't seem too far fetched.

There really isn't a linear plot, but a series of events where the shadows of the city seems to emulate the darkness of the character's minds. This takes every film noir cliché and triples them, even more gritty than the classics made up until that time. This seems to be the kind of film that I could watch over and over and pick up new things each time. It's a living nightmare for Sullivan as he slips further and further into despair. While Joan Lorring and Belita are fine as the hard-boiled female characters, it's Harry Morgan, Sheldon Leonard and Akim Tamiroff in male supporting roles who get the raves. But the real stars are the script and the photography, perfect and moody in every way. In fact, just thinking about those technical aspects made me up my rating just by thinking about it.

It doesn't happen very often, but it did here. The film's narrator and principal character, self-described crime kingpin Shubunka portrayed by Barry Sullivan, winds up dead at the end of the picture. How he gets to tell his story is a bit of a disconnect, but if that's something you can overlook, the ride is worth it.

One never knows what you'll get with one of these Poverty Row efforts but this one looks like a keeper, due principally to it's great black and white photography, noir elements and a rather fine supporting cast. Shubunka himself is a conflicted fellow, one might even go so far as to say a bit unbalanced. The overbearing relationship he has with girlfriend Nancy Starr (Belita) contributes to his eventual undoing, though I'm inclined to believe it would have happened anyway, with or without her falling in with rival gangster Cornell (Sheldon Leonard).

There's a puzzling side story involving Harry Morgan's soda jerk character Shorty wooing the older Mrs. Olga Ostroleng, her marital status perhaps kept purposely dubious. Shorty's proclamations of worldly conquests fall flat when he fails to win even the slightest peck on the cheek from the frumpy older woman. Unceremoniously dumped by Olga into the alley out her back door, Shorty's fate portends the downfall of the rest of the losers of Neptune Beach, including soda shop owner Jammey (Akim Tamiroff) and gambler Karty (John Ireland), as well as Shubunka himself. For old time cinema fans, stay alert and you'll catch Shelley Winters as the replacement cashier at the soda shop looking completely disinterested in what her boss Jammey has to say.

Barry Sullivan is the deeply troubled gangster, Shubunka. He can't trust anyone, even the girlfriend he dotes on, Nancy (Belita). He eventually alienates her to the extent that she double-crosses him. His underlings (John Ireland and Akim Tamiroff) turn on each other. The only really decent characters are the two women, Nancy and Dorothy (Joan Loring).

As ruthless, petty, and paranoid as Shubunka is, he does love Nancy, and respects Dorothy. But neither of them really wants to deal with his controlling behavior. This is very much a character study; a psychological film noir. Shubunka dominates his scenes, and we get so close to his view that, by the end, we experience his hallucinations and rants.

Aside from his personal problems, he has to deal with his increasingly powerful rival Cornell (Sheldon Leonard). The rival gangster, and his whole crew, are appropriately slimy. Elisha Cook, Jr., in particular, makes a great hyper/nutty sidekick. Tamiroff's Jammey, on the other hand, is essentially a decent guy driven to despair as he's caught between the two gangsters. Ireland's Frank is intensely uneasy; unlike Jammey, Shubunka despises Frank because he's made all of his own problems.

The same could be said for Harry Morgan's Shorty. I admit I've never taken to Morgan; he's got a sort of pretentious demeanor in most of his roles. Here he's gobbling up screen time as the "soda jerker." Another reviewer pointed out that Shorty's abortive flirtation with Olga (Fifi D'Orsay) parallels the central couple of Shubunka and Nancy. But for me it just messes with the tone: it's not even comic relief, it's pathetic relief.

For the most part, the tone's dark, with a claustrophobic atmosphere and a relentless pace. The cardboard backdrops in the street and beach scenes accentuate the flat, compressed space that mirrors Shubunka's narrowing world. This settings have the expressionistic feel of some of the inter-war German films. The ending is especially expressionistic, with a horror-story feel; Shubunka sees every face as threatening. The crowded streets and boardwalk become nightmarish; the downpour doesn't let up until Shubunka's literally swallowed up by the gutter water.

The lightning burst coincides with the gunshots that kill him; or does it just seem like lightning? The outer world has become a menacing character to Shubunka, both by (his killers') intention and by accident.

The Gangster's carries a powerful anti-crime theme. We can see that the criminal lifestyle has driven Shubunka mad; his complete breakdown is much more effective than the 'crime-doesn't-pay' sermons we sometimes get in similar films. This is crime drama at its best; by trimming "the soda jerker" subplot, The Gangster would be perfect.

I'm not convinced that we're seeing a straight-forward crime story with THE GANGSTER. It's practically an opium dream. He goes to the beach in a suit and tie and Elisha Cook comes along with a cohort and Cook keeps yapping about how he's going to knock Sullivan down - the 12-inch disparity in height makes this laughable.

Skubunka, Jammey, Karty - these names are so precious. Note the stylized sets - the hotel just off the boardwalk that seems about six-feet deep, it stops at the boardwalk. Yet when he runs into the lobby, it's as big as The Waldorf.

Shubunka, the gangster with no gang. He apparently gets his mob from Rent-A-Hood and when he tries to recruit, the potential members all laugh at him. He's big time, but has no money to afford out-of-town hoods. Sheldon Leonard anticipates his every move, yet he needs some silly list of Shubunka's operations. If Shubunka has all of those businesses under his control, why is he in the ice cream parlor all day?

Belita thinks she's a dancer, Ireland has a system to beat the races but he's in dutch with the mob - apparently Shubunka doesn't have the gambling concession on the boardwalk so Ireland goes to him for the money he owes since his fool-proof plan didn't work. Harry Morgan thinks he a stud and Fifi D'Orsay thinks she's a Goddess. The only one who knows his place is Tamiroff and he's smart enough to be scared but too dumb to have cut his ties with Shubunka sooner.

Lest you think I'm being negative, I'm not. It all seems as if Sullivan is hallucinating about his life and all of the characters are exaggerated, including himself. It's fascinating to watch.

Shubunka is the self-made head of the rackets in the sleazy boardwalk community of Neptune City, a low-rent version of Coney Island. He has become infatuated with a sultry nightclub chanteuse and lavishes her with gifts and attention, spending money on her that might better go to maintaining his hold on his operation. His obsession with her, as well as his pride, clouds his judgment as Cornell, a much more ruthless hoodlum, moves in on Shubunka's territory, bribes and threatens his associates, and compromises his operation. As if in a Greek tragedy, the petty gangster's weaknesses conspire to cause his downfall.

A strange film noir involving a low level racketeer being muscled out by a more powerful criminal. Overwritten is a mild description of this screenplay as the dialogue in this film is the most overripe words written in some time. The director, a former film designer, shot the film on sets (even though the action of the story takes place on Coney Island boardwalks) rather than actual locations giving the film an ethereal feeling of dreamy memory rather than what we come to expect from the the typical noir. Even the line delivery by the actors seems too much for most but if you can go w/the flow, you'll have a good yet strange time peeping this.

Barry Sullivan gave a performance lacking total emotion in the film. He shows absolutely no expression as the head of the rackets along with shop owner, Akim Tamiroff. The latter does a fine job of acting as a man caught up in the rackets even though he constantly talks of his wife and home life.

John Ireland is quite good as the CPA caught up in gambling addiction which leads him to an unspeakable act and the ultimate downfall of Sullivan as Sheldon Leonard and his crew try to take over the operation.

Belita is charming as the woman Sullivan loved, but yet he is insanely jealous and suspicious of her, which leads to her ultimate betrayal of him.

Two years after her Oscar nominated turn as the vicious young lady in "The Corn is Green," Joan Lorring is rather subdued her until her outburst directed at Sullivan towards the end of the film.

For a supposed gangster, Sullivan shows a sheepish side,especially when he is cornered.

For a film with this name, you would think there would be much more violent action.

I watched "The Gangster" because of those wily tricksters at TCM, who do such a great job setting up all of their movies that you feel like you simply can't miss whatever terrific gem is on next. "The Gangster" was part of their "Summer of Darkness" series, a series devoted to my favorite film genre: film noir. But "The Gangster" is not a noir, nor is it even a gangster movie. It's more like the character study of someone who happens to be a gangster, and it's pretty underwhelming stuff. Barry Sullivan is the titular character, a heavy with a serious case of self doubt. Around him float a supporting cast of more or less pathetic loners, and the film plays like an examination of the loneliness to be found on the crowded city streets, a loneliness that persists despite being constantly surrounded by fellow human beings. That's a noir theme, but it isn't given a noir treatment by director Gordon Wiles, who won an art direction Oscar in 1931-32 for "Transatlantic." The TCM host said that his production design background is evident in his direction, as the film looks more like a play than a movie. Boy does it, and it's impossible to stage a film noir this way, since noir is, above anything else, cinematic.

But my disappointment in "The Gangster" lies not only in the false advertising of TCM. On its own terms it's still not much more than a mediocre, rather slow movie.

Grade: C+

What a load of awful characters. Charles McGraw is good as always with a brief appearance as a thug as is Sheldon Leonard (Cornell) as a gangster boss. Outside of these two, the only others of any note are Fifi D'Orsay as an elderly suitor for the idiotic character that is Harry Morgan's soda jerk. She gets one brief scene which provides the funniest moments of the film as she throws him out of her apartment. The other cast member of note is an uncredited Shelley Winters who plays a cashier for about 30 seconds of screen time. Given that most of the film contains the other lot in this film, that's not a good sign.

The film follows unpleasant Barry Sullivan (Shubunka) as he loses hold of his small-time crime empire. It's impossible to identify with him just as it is impossible to identify with anyone else. The film is boring and confusing at the beginning as the dialogue isn't delivered in a particularly clear manner. I'm not going to namecheck the duds in this film as it would take too long. Didn't care for any of the characters and the story wasn't too gripping. A waste of time for all involved. I guessed the girlfriend Belita (Nancy) plot line pretty early on so no mystery there either. She also sings a boring song.