I'd Give My Life (1936) User Reviews (5)

Hard to believe and a bit silly, but oddly, I liked it.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 19 August 2013]

Tom Brown plays Nickie Elkins--the adopted son of a scum-bag crook. Despite this, he's a very nice young man and has a nice wholesome girlfriend. He loves to fly and one day this offered him a chance to meet the Governor's wife---a lady he liked very much. As far as his father is concerned, however, Nickie is NOT impressed. His old man is a horrible person and plans on using something to blackmail the Governor--but for some time you have no idea WHAT this is. Only later does Nickie learn that HE is what his adoptive father is planning on using against the Governor. It seems that Nickie IS actually his father's biological son...and the Governor's wife is his biological mother. However, she is an innocent pawn. It seems that Nickie's father kidnapped him away as a baby and now wants to tarnish the Governor's name by revealing that his wife was previously married to a mobster and has a son. Nickie realizes now just how awful his dad is and how this jerk takes glee in ruining his ex-wife. And, when he gets in a fight with his dad, a shot rings out and the nasty guy is killed. Now Nickie COULD accurately claim self-defense but plans on doing nothing to defend himself in order to protect his mother and the Governor.

Does all this sound believable? Certainly not. It's even a tad bit silly. Yet, I liked Brown's performance and found this cheap B-movie quite entertaining. Worth seeing despite its faults.

More gallows humour

[robinakaaly · 5/10 · 10 December 2012]

Genre: get me to the gallows on time. A new clean-up governor is told by the local crime boss that he'll regret being a new broom. A young protégé of the boss is in love with the beautiful singer (Frances Drake, who should have gone on to better things) in the night club which fronts the rackets. One of which is a wire service for a gambling joint: the clock runs slow so the joint knows the results whilst the punters are still betting (genre: the gee-gees are running late tonite).The boy refuses to throw a jockey out of his aeroplane for failing to lose a race, and plans to quit. The boss explains that in fact he is the boy's father by the governor's wife. He stole the boy when the relationship broke up and put him through reform school to train him for a life of crime. In a fight the boy shoots his father. At his trial he is sentenced to hang, not least because he offers no defence (he wants to protect his mother who believes her baby had died). At the appointed hour, the audience assembles to watch the hanging and the boy is led in. Meanwhile, outside the correctional, correction, terminal facility, the girl waits. Later she goes to see the governor to ask for the corpse to give is a decent burial. The governor agrees and rings the warden to arrange matters. However, the warder explains the hanging was deferred on receipt of a call from the governor's office. The boy has been saved, and everybody gathers in the office to find out what happened (it was the governor's soft-hearted but indomitable mother who made the call). At that moment a member of the crime boss's gang rings up to tell the governor the dead boss had the last, laugh, as it was his wife's son they've just topped. It is now clear why such a play was made of the wire scenes. Based on the play, The Noose, it all worked very smoothly and tautly, so one could forgive any number of implausibilities and bureaucratic nonsenses.

Murder for noble reasons.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 22 January 2016]

When a young man murders for no apparent reason, it seems human nature to simply say, He's no good. But that's not always justified, and in the case of a reformed delinquent (Tom Brown), he has killed perhaps one of the most despicable men ever to get gunned down in a movie: his own father. Brown shoots the nefarious criminal down after learning the truth about his parentage. It's a shocker to him, and realizing that he is a pawn in a truly horrible plan for revenge, feels he has no choice.

The film starts with the arrival at the state capital of the new governor and his wife, truly decent people who long to do good for the people of their state. But where there is good, evil is usually in hiding, and in the case of governor Sir Guy Standing, it is in the form of the man who later gets his just rewards and hopefully a one way ticket to eternal torture. Janet Beechet is the noble wife of the governor who pleas for a stay of execution, not realizing that she greatly figures in Brown's refusal to speak. Frances Drake sings her heart out, in agony over the situation, playing Brown's devoted girlfriend.

Poignant and often gripping, this is the opposite of the typical mother love story, and taken from the perspective of a child never given the opportunity to get to know his mother, it is truly touching. There are fine performances by Helen Lowell as Standing's aging mother who at first seems a rival to her daughter in law, but is truly understanding all of her cracks, and Robert Gleckler as the despicable mobster who has no redeeming values but for some reason has many dimensions that make him seem real, like a 1930's version of J.R. Ewing. Don't be upset by an unconventional ending, but considering the circumstances, I found it quite appropriate. I started this late in an evening and found that I couldn't turn it off. Now that is what to me makes a great movie, and one I will definitely watch again.

Tough and vulnerable

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 24 February 2017]

Some of the same plot elements in I'd Give My Life are also found in Manhattan Melodrama. And certainly this film qualifies as a melodrama. Looking at both films you can see the advantages in production values at MGM versus some fly by night independent outfit.

The film is based on Broadway play from the 20s called The Noose that ran for 197 showings in the 1926-27 season. Among the cast in one of the small roles was the as yet unknown Barbara Stanwyck.

Tom Brown is a young, but charming hoodlum who shows the toughness and vulnerability of being a foundling and raised in an orphanage. He's a pet protégé of racketeer Robert Geckler who Governor John Standing has promised to get rid of in his state.

When Brown balks at an order, Geckler gives him an account of his real history and truly shows what a rat he is. Brown shoots him and then offers no real defense in the crime.

I can't say much more but the Governor is under pressure to commute the sentence. In the end he's shown why.

The women in the cast all have vital roles and they are Janet Beecher as the Governor's wife, Helen Lowell as his mother, and Frances Drake as the torch singer carrying a torch for Brown.

At a studio like MGM this could have been another Manhattan Melodrama. But the production is pretty shoddy.

Some Great Performances

[boblipton · 8/10 · 23 July 2019]

Tom Brown kills gangster Robert Gleckler. He confesses. During his trial, his only statement is "He deserved to die." Apparently this isn't Texas, because while everyone in the state agrees with that, the law is the law and the youngster must hang. No one wants to do it, not the governor, not his wife, not the warden or the guards at the prison (which seems to be next door to the governor's mansion, which in turn has no security: very odd). However, since Brown will offer no further statement, and wants to get it over with, the governor's hands are tied. Brown will hang on schedule.

It's based on a play by H.H. Van Loan and Willard Mack, and it is filled with some fine actors giving excellent performances. Paul Hurst, Janet Beecher, Guy Standing, all of them are performers who knew how to act. Gleckler is a treat as the gangster that Brown kills. Although director Edwin L, Marin and cinematographer Ira Morgan don't open it much, it doesn't need a cinematic treatment. It's got a script and a cast that are fascinating by themselves.