The Hoodlum Saint

TCM had "The Hoodlum Saint" on August 8, 2016, the first of a series of movies starring Esther Williams. Williams was 24 when she co-starred in this movie and she looked great. Star William Powell looked like he was just earning a paycheck, he had the most script lines and this script was a disaster area, completely unreal. This movie had fine stars and character actors at every turn: James Gleason, Frank McHugh, Angela Lansbury, Rags Ragland. All try hard but who is really interested in a story that revolves in part on the story of Saint Dismas, the good thief in the New Testament who becomes the "hoodlum saint." Greenlighting movies like this turkey paved the way for MGM production head Louis B. Mayer's dismissal.

Cliff Reid was the producer of this movie, his first and last for MGM. Reid had worked as a producer or assistant producer at RKO from 1934 to 1942, according to IMDb. If the movie was low budget, like RKO movies starring Lee Tracy, Reid was the producer. These RKO movies are mostly unwatchable, badly written and with bad production values. For a bigger budget movie like "Bringing Up Baby," Reid was the associate producer. Reid is the one who deserves all the blame for how bad "The Hoodlum Saint" is, it has a low budget script tagged to the high production values MGM gave its movies.

Further, William Powell was miscast as the star, he sleep walked through most of the movie. You have Esther Williams full of vitality playing against a very dull William Powell. Producer Cliff Reid imbued this movie with "B" movie values. You know, MGM would have been better off making this movie starring Lee Tracy in William Powell's role as a former newspaperman who sells out at first to get rich on Wall Street before the crash.

Writer James Hill wrote this wonderful story which was directed by Norman Taurog and relates this rags to riches story, staring William Powell as Terence Ellerton 'Terry' O'Neill'. Powell has just been discharged from the Army, after World War One. Finding it near impossible to find employment, he crashes a High Society wedding and with little effort on his part, bumps into just the right people. Shortly thereafter, he is soon riding the gravy train and up towards his first million. Esther Williams and Angela Lansbury are also along with him as are other close friends. Eventually, he finds his second million easier and with it accumulating wealth in everything he attempts. Finding success in all his endeavors, he creates a non-existing Charity fund for the poor and realizes it too is a success. Then Wall Street collapses and Ellerton finds he too is brought low by the Economic Meltdown. As America looks to blame someone, he too is slated for jail or prison. Landing in the streets, he realizes that being poor is lonely at the bottom and wishes he hadn't squandered his life and few friends. The film is a tribute to self reliance and what to do with the wonderful opportunities one is given along the way. Powell is wonderful as are his Co-Stars. Easily recommended. ****

When The Thin Man series was in high gear one of the endearing parts of those films is how Nick Charles would constantly be running into various criminals he'd had dealings with in the past. Usually he'd run into them while out with Nora and it was always fun to see how Nora took to these characters, people she wouldn't in a million years be associated with herself.

I think that MGM thought it was funny too so William Powell was cast as a returning veteran from World War I who as a newspaper reporter before the war apparently had a similar rogue's gallery of friends. It didn't really work here though, Powell is cast in a part that probably would have fit James Cagney or even Spencer Tracy better.

Plus the fact that in 1946 William Powell was 54 years old. Esther Williams in her memoirs thought it was ludicrous to be working with a man twice her age as a romantic couple. She describes in her memoirs the elaborate makeup preparation Powell went through and in fact he had to wear a girdle to keep his middle age spread from showing too much. According to her, Powell thought it just as ludicrous and in fact would be doing the lead in Life With Father the next year, a role far better suited to his age and talent.

Of course any film that utilizes the combined talents of James Gleason, Slim Summerville, Frank McHugh, and Rags Ragland as the four Damon Runyonesque characters in Powell's life can't be all bad.

Powell is a returning veteran from World War I who can't get his old job back as a reporter in Baltimore. So by hook or crook he makes a great deal of money, some of it by tactics this side of a con game. He meets two women in his life, socialite Esther Williams minus pool and nightclub singer Angela Lansbury dubbed in this film.

He's got these characters though who he likes but are becoming quite a burden around his neck. When Gleason gets pinched for bookmaking he makes up a religious yarn about a mysterious St. Dismas, the good thief crucified with Jesus as the one who gets the Deity to move in mysterious ways. Gleason gets sprung and it works too well as he becomes a fanatic on the subject. Powell, caught up in his own chicanery, becomes a big mover and shaker in a St. Dismas foundation.

It's not a bad story, nostalgic for its times as the action starts at the end of the previous World War. It also could have used someone like Frank Borzage, or Henry Koster, or even Frank Capra who dealt better with this kind of material.

This is an old-time enjoyable movie, the plot keeps moving, with new and interesting events around each turn. The movie is lot like real life, which has setbacks, but eventually things like character and work ethics are what win out in the end. The protagonist, a war veteran, becomes very wealthy by bravado, good fortune, creative thinking, and hard work, only to lose it in the great crash of 1929. And I suppose that the way one's character weathers misfortune is equally important to the one's character in earning it.

This is not the shallow stuff you see in the movie houses of today. Ester Williams and Angela Landsbury are not only great actors, but are also beautiful and great to watch.

The war was not World War II, but rather, the Great War. Returning veterans were treated well, the plot line tells us, but they did not all return to their jobs. Such was the fate for one Terry O'Neil, a delightful role in the hands of William Powell.

Always eager to help the friends he made as a reporter – yes, his sources were often hoodlums – he does that. The doors are slammed in his face, and he uses his supreme wit to make his fortunate. He uses religion – Catholicism and Saint Dismas (Patron of Thieves) – to get his hoodlum friends to leave him alone. So we the viewer are left with a nice guy who has changed into a driven man with plenty of money and no need whatsoever for faith.

America changed on October 29, 1929, and so did Terry O'Neil. Anything else would be a spoiler, but it is a William Powell movie and Powell's characters were wicked smart and unwicked decent sorts.

The love interest, and films have to have one of those, was played beautifully by a beauty: Esther Williams. O'Neil's dark side's love interest was played by Angela Lansbury, straight from Broadway with a voice to match her beauty.

THE HOODLUM SAINT may, as has been suggested, have been better suited for '36 than for '46, but it plays well in '07 for those of us who love these films.