The Racketeer

Hey, I get it. Its an early talkie and possesses historical significance, and not just entertainment value. I appreciate that, and can enjoy it on that level a little. But ultimately I rate films on whether I was entertained or not. In this case, I wasn't very much. It's not a terrible film or story, but the biggest problem is that it lacks propulsion or good forward movement. In other words its a bit dull. Lombard is alluring and seems like a fine actor, and the other performances are pretty good. But even for a short movie, it seemed to not end quick enough.

The good story and Carole Lombard's performance make "The Racketeer" one of the movies of the very early sound era that still holds up all right. It does have the flaws common to the earliest sound movies, with some shaky dialogue delivery, an erratic pace, and weak sound quality. But these do not keep it from being worth seeing, and in any case even the better movies of 1929 usually had some of these same problems.

Lombard has a very good role as a somewhat mysterious divorcée caught between two very different men. Robert Armstrong plays the gangster who helps both her and her other boyfriend. The third member of the triangle is a drunken violinist played by Roland Drew. Drew gives a rather nondescript performance, but at least the character is interesting. More than that, the setup does a good job in varying the usual formula so as to set up some good drama.

The atmosphere holds up well, and although some individual sequences have oddly chosen pacing, as a whole the story moves along pretty well. It easily holds your interest for the whole running time. It compares favorably with many of the movies of its day, and it is still a solid feature worth seeing for those who enjoy the movies of the era.

I enjoyed this 66 minute film despite the overly theatrical delivery of almost every line. One gets the impression that this film was directed by an eighth grade home economics teacher. Despite this annoying drawback, the story is sweet and there is a genuine chemistry between the leading lady, Carole Lombard, and the head gangster played by Robert Armstrong.

Carole Lombard is attractively photographed and has a large amount of quality screen time here. She is pulled in two directions by two men who genuinely care for her. One is a concert violinist who we are introduced to early on in the picture as a man who has been reduced to nothing more than a bum in the gutter. The other is the suave gangster who for the first time has found something in this life greater than himself. The question is: who needs her most and who truly loves her? And in what direction will fate allow her to go.

The dramatic ending will tug at your heart-strings. This was Carole's last picture for Pathe studios.

Well mounted, interesting story about suave racketeer Armstrong falling for impoverished deb Lombard, hampered a bit by the declamatory style of speaking any speech longer than three words and apparent immobility of microphones.

In 1929, in New York, the powerful mobster Mahlon Keane (Robert Armstrong) meets the bankrupted former socialite Rhoda Philbrooke (Carol Lombard) in a poker game of a benefit fund-raiser party and helps her to cheat the game. Rhoda had divorced from her wealthy husband to stay with her alcoholic lover, the violinist Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew), and is financially broken. Mahlon feels attracted by Rhoda and helps her to recover the health of Tony and promotes his career. Later Mahlon proposes Rhoda, who accepts to marry him, but a couple of hours before their marriage in a yacht, Tony tells Rhoda that he loves her. While Rhoda thinks how to tell Mahlon about her love for Tony, a tragedy happens in Tony's dressing room.

"The Racketeer" is one of the first American features in the sound age, and has a dated melodramatic story of a triangle of love composed by a gangster, a musician and an ex-socialite. This film is only reasonable, having silly dialogs, average theatrical performances, terrible quality of sound with a terrible voice intonation of the cast and the images have not been restored, therefore is full of problems. The Brazilian DVD released by London Distributor, has an additional problem, with the bad quality of subtitle in Portuguese, full of mistakes, without synchronization and using capital letters in the first letter of every sentence. "The Racketeer" is only recommended as a curiosity of the transition between silent and sound features. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Gangster" ("The Gangster")