Portrait of a Mobster (1961) User Reviews (7)

It Had To Be Vic.

[kayaker36 · 8/10 · 8 November 2008]

When Vic Morrow in the title role proclaims to the assembled members of his freshly formed organization, "I'm a Bronx boy!" you can feel he wasn't just acting. A Jewish boy from the Bronx (N.Y.) himself, Vic Morrow was made for the role of the Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz, known as the Beer Baron of the Bronx. And when Schultz reminisces to Leslie Parrish about getting respect on the mean streets of the East Bronx by being tougher than anyone else, you get the impression Morrow is summoning up his own experiences. He is simply superb in the role, portraying Schultz as brutally ambitious, cruel and crude ("I'm sorry he got plugged," Schultz says to the daughter of a man he himself killed.) yet oddly sympathetic, the product of a criminal environment who had little choice but to turn out as he did.

This black and white picture lacks high production values, marquee names or a brilliant script. It scrambles some of the known facts in Schultz's life and shortchanges some important characters. What it does have is sharp, memorable characterizations--of Schultz himself, of Mafia boss "Lucky" Luciano (who in fact took out the "contract" on Schultz), with actor Ray Danton reprising his portrayal of "Legs" Diamond, and "Mad Dog" Coll.

" My Name is Arthur Flegenheimer "

[thinker1691 · 7/10 · 16 October 2008]

There are many actors who's talents are made for certain parts. From the very best to the lowly actor, some parts are best suited for others. This is the story of Arthur Flegenheimer, who became the notorious "Dutch Schultz " and made his fortune in Organized Crime in the 1930's. The selection of Vic Morrow as Schultz was a fortunate step for Morrow and for his fans. The rise of this talented, but troublesome individual lent many to believe he was very lucky. His side kick Bo Wetzel played by Norman Alden predicted that so long as they two of them were together, nothing could happen to them. His foresight was better than Shultz' as proved by their historical demise. Joseph Gallison plays Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll and Ray Danton is dangerous as 'Legs' Diamond. The rise and fall of this brutal gangster is aptly plays for the audience and even if you know the fate of the hood, it's nice to see Morrow at his best in this part. Good film. ***

Good Little Movie, But Morrow Deserved Better

[telegonus · 8/10 · 5 August 2005]

Portrait Of a Mobster is a good little movie about the rise and fall of gangster Dutch Schultz, and is a fairly typical example of the nostalgic gangster films of the late fifties and early sixties, many of them biographies of famous criminals (Al Capone, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein). What distinguishes this film is that its lead actor, Vic Morrow, was more talented than most, and deserved a better picture. The production values of the movie are decent but hardly spectacular, and are roughly on par with the TV shows its studio, Warner Brothers, was producing at around the same time, especially The Roaring Twenties, which this movie could almost be an offshoot of. Many studio contractees have key supporting parts in the film. But it's Morrow's complex and serious performance that holds the movie together and gives it a touch of class. Morrow was in some ways like Jeff Bridges in being a deadly seriously dramatic actor who seldom, if ever, relied on charm. Like so many gifted actors he went the television route and a year after this film was cast as one of the leads in the popular Combat! series, which ran for several seasons and made Morrow somewhat of a star. He continued to work regularly thereafter, always doing first rate, sometimes exceptional work (check out his chilling performance in The Glass House). But Morrow never really had much of a movie career after his small screen success, becoming a reliable actor on mostly made-for-TV movies. He died fairly young in a freak accident involving a helicopter while working on a movie. One wonders what might have happened to Morrow had he stuck to making films, staking his claim as a serious actor on stage and screen. We'll never know, but his work in Portrait Of a Mobster offers a tantalizing glimpse of the star Morrow might have been.

A good effort

[parachute-4 · 7/10 · 8 November 2006]

My favorite from the WB gangster flick genre of the 1950's and 60's. Contains the memorable line (from Shultze to henchmen after a confrontation with his dipsomaniac girlfriend), "There should be a law against women drinking".

A real virtuoso performance from Vic Morrow who even gets to SING a number or two in this film (though not terribly well). Morrow is consistently believable as the execrable Dutch Shultz, real name Arthur Flegenheimer, the New York prohibition mobster who dominated the headlines for a time in the early 1930's.

The film is notable in that it does not stray too far from historical fact. The phone-booth gun-down of Shultze's arch-enemy, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll is totally accurate and Shultz's own messy demise along with a number of his henchmen at the Palace Chop House in Newark is reasonably close to the factual details. Shultz's racketeering masterpiece, the control and expansion of "the numbers" in the early thirties under the direction of genius mathematician turned crook, George "Addadabba"Berman is portrayed quite well. (The real Berman met his end in Jersey that night along with his boss, but the numbers racket went from strength to strength)

Many,if not most of the character players in this film were experienced screen thugs or cops from the Warner stable and they all carry their roles well. The love-interest between Shultz's much ill-used moll and her insipid former boyfriend is a bit on the flat side. We can certainly see why she prefers the despicable Dutchman !

Morrow also has what has to be one of the most unromantic lines in screen history, and perfectly in character : As the girlfriend (ably played by Leslie Parrish) emerges from their bedroom disheveled and hungover, Shultz simply sneers at her, "You stink!" Nice guy.

Had he not been so successful in the role of the good Sergeant Saunders in the hit TV series "Combat", Vic Morrow could have gone onto to great heights as a screen villain, and in fact later in his career , he was showing promising signs of developing such roles further. His performance as the boss con in "The Glasshouse" (1972) showed that he had lost none of his touch.

Incidentally, Leslie Parrish went on to turn in a solid performance as Lawrence Harvey's doomed fiancé in "The Manchurian Candidate".

I've always regarded Vic Morrow's portrayal of Dutch Shultze as definitive, and its interesting to compare it with Dustin Hoffman's effective but very different treatment of the same character role in "Billy Bathgate".

R. B.

The Boss of the Bronx

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 23 November 2017]

By all accounts Dutch Schultz was one brutal man who shot first and asked no questions. In real life and in Portrait Of A Mobster Schultz acts pretty much the way he does here. He also took the name of Dutch Schultz as part of his persona. By his real name of Arthur Fliegenheimer no one would buy that as intimidating. Just like Adolph Hitler never used Schickelgruber.

Vic Morrow may have gotten his career role in Portrait Of A Mobster. If the facts are sketchy he's got the essence of Schultz down cold. In this tale young Fliegenheimer is turned down by Leslie Parrish in a marriage proposal and she teams up with policeman Peter Breck. Smart girl had a sixth sense on these things.

One thing is definitely true. According to gangland lore Schultz was done in on orders from Lucky Luciano played here under an alias by Frank DeKova. Schultz wanted to hit Thomas E. Dewey who was preparing a case against him. The newly formed national syndicate thought that would bring down too much heat so Schultz had to be eliminated. Of course when Dewey got Luciano he might have had cause to regret stopping Schultz.

What is also true is the trial he got with the change of venue to Malone, New York, county seat of Franklin County in New York State and right up against the Candian border. What you see there is exactly what happened.

While he was alive Schultz was the uncrowned and uncontested Boss of the Bronx. Portrait Of A Mobster shows the essence of his reign.

Underrated gangster biopic with excellent performance by Vic Morrow

[mlraymond · 8/10 · 1 April 2007]

This modestly budgeted gangster movie can be seen as a sequel of sorts to Warners' earlier Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, with Ray Danton doing an extensive reprise of his Diamond role. The interesting part is that here, Diamond is portrayed as a successful, wealthy, almost respectable businessman type, and not the ambitious small time hoodlum of the first movie. He is shown as the established gangland authority figure to whom the younger, on the make Dutch Schultz comes for a job. Diamond is shown giving orders to his henchmen in a palatial office/home, but not carrying a gun himself. His amused, condescending attitude toward Schultz is contrasted with the belligerent, hard nosed behavior of Schultz and his pal Bo Wetzel as a couple of street toughs.

Morrow makes Schultz a believable and more than one dimensional gangster character. He is nasty and crude, coldblooded, vain, greedy, and yet capable of an unexpected charm and shy awkwardness at times. It's a performance that makes the character capable of surprising behavior, sometimes generous and well meaning, with a basic crudity that never quite goes away. Morrow's playing, and the writing, might remind the viewer a little of Rod Steiger's characterization a couple of years earlier in the biographical Al Capone.

The one weakness of the movie is the character of the police detective who ends up on Schultz's payroll. This rather annoying character is perhaps played a little too convincingly by Peter Breck as a spineless boozer, whose wife ends up for a time as Schultz's mistress, though he regains a bit of integrity at the end.

Norman Alden is quite good as Schultz's sidekick Bo Wetzel, with effective turns by other gangster movie veterans like Frank DeKova in various mobster roles. This is a movie definitely worth checking out for fans of Twenties gangster stories. A preachy attitude underlies the action, mixed oddly with a black comedy approach that makes for an interesting contrast in the presentation of the movie's subject.

Typical of the early sixties gangster biographies fashion

[searchanddestroy-1 · 3 December 2023]

First, I was very enjoyed and surprised to see Ray Danton in his Legs Diamond character, which he also had in Budd Boetticher's RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND, shot the same year. Very smart. Here, Vic Morrow is the lead in a terrific performance, one of his best, for a good Joseph Pevney's film, Pevney who was only an excellent film maker with no personnal touch, as were Joseph Newman or Richard Thorpe, and so many other directors. This movie is of course a rise and fall scheme of a gangster, nothing new. I repeat, there were dozens of those during the early sixties. This one is not a masterpiece but a gritty, tough one.