Copyright 19 April 1940 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 12 April 1940. U.S. release: 19 April 1940. Australian release: 13 June 1940. 8,686 feet. 96 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Bob Cain (Power) leaves college when he learns that his dad (Arnold) has been arrested for embezzlement. Bob vows to work for his release and eventually finds a shyster lawyer, Brennan, (Grapewin), who agrees to take the case.
OVERVIEW: In the first of his five films with director Henry Hathaway, Power surprised his fans by playing a gangster
Originally titled Dance with the Devil, the film was to have re-teamed Power with Linda Darnell as Lucky DuBarry. But then Zanuck loaned Don Ameche to Paramount in exchange for Dorothy Lamour. Guess who got the better of that deal!
COMMENT: The film is so beautifully photographed, it's always a pleasure to watch and it's enacted by one of the greatest and largest casts ever assembled for a film of this type. There are so many excellent cameo portrayals, each making such a positive, unified yet unobtrusively realistic contribution. Power gives an ingratiating and convincing performance in the title role while Nolan is charmingly and fascinatingly reptilian and Charley Grapewin is a stand-out as the alcoholic shyster. Lionel Atwill is exactly right for the part of a lawyer with a double standard, whilst Marc Lawrence looks and acts the part of a cheap hood perfectly.
Also seen to advantage in this line-up of principals is Dorothy Lamour, who even has a couple of right-in-the-mood songs, including a little production number with a wow of a chorus. Pleasingly, she is not always photographed from the most flattering angles, so she looks the part as well as she acts it out.
However, Edward Arnold is forced to battle valiantly with a role that is not as well-written as the others. It's a key role, but one occasionally has the impression that it's being built up in order to put Arnold on camera for longer than the dramatic potential of his scenes warrants. On TV, the long, boring, extraneous scene in which Power returns home from college and has a long confrontation with his father is usually cut, as there is no essential information in this scene that is not repeated later on. And for all Arnold's mannerisms, Cain is not nearly as interesting a character as Apollo, or Dwyer, or Brennan — or even Lucky.
Hathaway makes imaginative use of natural locations (the camera panning up to catch Power looking over the gallery at the railway station and the shot through the glass door framing Power and Atwill — a characteristic Hathaway touch — as they walk to the entrance) and drives the film along at a fast clip. There are also some characteristic touches of violence (Power bringing down Lawrence with a flying tackle; Nolan slapping Lamour around — this sequence was too much for the Australian censor; Brennan's murder in the steam-room, the more chillingly effective for not being shown directly on camera; the climactic prison break).
Hathaway's approach is varied. Occasionally he employs long takes, and has an excellent eye for composition in his establishing long shots — sometimes he holds these for most of the sequence, sometimes he breaks them up with medium close-ups. Usually, he eschews reverse angles (though there are a couple of examples in the film) and he can use mirror shots with dramatic effectiveness. In short, his style is admirably varied and shows his usual deftness and skill.
In all, this is vintage Henry Hathaway. The best scenes are those filmed on actual locations and the two action scenes (the murder and the prison break).
AVAILABLE on an excellent 20th Century Fox DVD.
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