Born Reckless

"Born Reckless" did not strike me as an appropriate title, but the original title of the story from which this movie came was simply "Louis Beretti," even more meaningless.

"Born Reckless" starts right out with action and even gunshots, but moves rather slowly throughout. But remember, this is an early sound picture, and in that context, it is very well done.

Locations range from New York to the World War I battlefield of France and back, from urban New York to the countryside, and the look we get of the era makes "Born Reckless" valuable, if not an entirely entertaining motion picture.

It has an excellent cast, with Edmund Lowe the star. He was a good actor but is little known today.

However if you look carefully, you will see the biggest star of all time ... but you have to look VERY carefully. In fact, I never did see John Wayne, although he is listed in the "uncredited" cast here at IMDb.

Quite visible, although also uncredited, is the great Randolph Scott. Also visible is the great Ward Bond, who is given billing but is on-screen in about two scenes.

Known well to John Ford aficionados is Jack Pennick, quite visible also, and whose presence always added so much. Another future cowboy star I didn't see is Bill Elliott, uncredited.

Playing the sister of the Lowe character is Marguerite Churchill, who had a couple years before co-starred with John Wayne in "The Big Trail," and it must have been interesting to be on this set with him as an unbilled extra.

Lowe's character is not especially likable, and probably the most likable character is the newspaper guy, played by Lee Tracy.

The cast alone makes "Born Reckless" very worth watching, even though the story is not very pleasant. It is, though, an interesting look at the World War I and Prohibition era America which, added to the cast, should entice you into watching.

I do recommend it, having watched it On Demand from Time Warner Cable. There is a trailer for it at YouTube.

In his long career John Ford shared directorial credit in two other films, Mister Roberts and Young Cassidy. Both were considerably better than Born Reckless. Someone named Andrew Bennison who was mostly a screenwriter was the co-director, presumably to help Ford over the bumps of the new sound media.

I saw and reviewed Ford's film, The Black Watch some months ago and he could have used the help. By the time Arrowsmith and Up The River were in theaters, I think John Ford was used to the sound media.

Except for The Whole Town's Talking possibly, I'm not sure if John Ford ever directed anything else that could remotely be called a gangster film. Our hero protagonist here is Edmund Lowe who after being caught along with some other of his friends in a jewelry heist is given the choice by a district attorney to enlist in the army or stand trial. He and his friends are local heroes in their neighborhood and the District Attorney is running for judge. Lowe and company take the offer.

By the way, Roy Stewart as the DA is another type that Ford would use over and over in films, the self satisfied bloviating blowhard who was usually in a position of great responsibility and often misused it. Coming to mind immediately with Stewart as the DA is banker Gatewood in Stagecoach who was so memorably played by Berton Churchill.

The story than goes to very familiar ground for Ford in the military. This is the best part of the film by far and absolutely pure John Ford. All the rough house style comedy that you saw in his later military setting pictures is right here. You'll see Ford regulars Jack Pennick and Ward Bond here.

Back in civilian Lowe sets himself if not as an outright gangster, he becomes a club owner, aka runs a speakeasy which is not quite condoned by polite society. Ford has a great old time ribbing Prohibition, still in affect in 1930. On a more serious note like Al Pacino, his friends are determined to drag him right back in again.

The version I saw of Born Reckless had some footage left out which left some holes in the film so part of its problems come from that. The rest might very well be the result of Ford being forced to share director credit with someone not anywhere close to his talents. It's not a bad film, but not real worthy of what we would expect from John Ford.

John Ford continues to be flummoxed by early sound while Edmund Lowe is a sorry case for an Italian in this hackneyed mobster pic. Spitting one tough guy cliche after the next it fails to even approach the onslaught of classic gangster films (Little Caeser, Public Enemy, Scarface) with more convincing leads that would follow over the next year.

Louis Berretti (Lowe) is about to get sent up the river when a judge gives him an option to go to war instead, which he accepts. Upon return he goes straight and opens a club but his loyalty to his old pals remains and a spat between factions threatens to ruin his future.

As in his previous Black Watch, Ford seems confounded at getting anything but stilted performances out of his actors. The wooden Lowe is dreadfully miscast, looking more upscale financier than slum grown with the rest of the characters outside of a buoyant Lee Tracy not worth mentioning for their own good.

There are some tense moments and limp attempts at humor but Ford's ham fisted direction squanders them in this flaccid gangster pic devoid of the violent passion that would infuse the aforementioned films waiting in the wings.

This is the dangerous part of not worrying too much about the pieces that feed into your ending. Yes, everything in the ending was set up, but the first bulk of the film is so overstuffed, unfocused, and downright dull that the fact that the ending is a fulfillment of the rest of the story ends up not meaning all that much. The story was simply not that interesting to begin with. This is an increasingly rare misstep in Ford's burgeoning career.

Born Reckless tells the story of Louis Beretti (Edmund Lowe), a low-level hood in his little corner of New York City. He and his friends run a small time racket, mostly trying to rob jewelry stores. I will say one thing about this film: it's opening shot is great, just absolutely great. It's a tracking shot that follows a truck full of soldiers heading off to join in the fight in Europe singing "Over There", the perennial soldierly anthem of World War I, continuing forward after the truck turns to the right, and we see the lookout man in front of the jewelry store. This is strong, economical, and visual filmmaking and storytelling that's creating a stark impression of the contrast between the young men going off to war and the young men staying behind to commit crimes.

The heist gets aborted when their wheelman attracts too much attention, and they get away safe. Louis heads home where his immigrant mother and father, speaking in broken English with Italian accents, welcome him home with open arms while his kid sister, Rosa (Marguerite Churchill) is hosting a young man in the other room. The young man is hoping to marry Rosa, and Louis needs to take him to his friends to size him up, much to the dismay of one of his gang who had had sights on Rosa. The police pick Louis and some of his gang up, though, and in a move that seems like only could happen in a movie, the judge sends Louis to fight on the front lines of the war, keeping any charges in limbo until he returns.

The movie then becomes a World War I soldiering movie, complete with an introduction to the loosest and most information start to basic training I've ever seen, baseball in France, and a hurried battle scene that's more a collection of moments than anything. And before you know it, we're back to New York.

This movie really does take on way too much. I thought the film was going to stay in France for the bulk of the film when it came up. It made sense. It would be the personal journey of a young, listless, and criminal man learning duty and honor in the service of his country, but it's over before we get a sense of much of anything.

Louis comes back, falls for the sister of a friend he made back in France but she's due to marry someone else. He ends up running a huge nightclub somehow while his old gang kind of just remain in the old neighborhood. There's a kidnapping plot introduced with about twenty minutes left, an assassination, and the ending really does use all the elements that came before. However, none of that matters because by the halfway point I was just bored by what I was watching.

Nothing was connecting. We just kept jumping from one storyline to another. It never felt like we were following one man on a journey with an emotional core. It was just a series of scene strung together and cut down to the bone. So, the mechanics of the story are there, but the emotional hook is missing.

Born Reckless is more of what I expected from this era of Ford when I started. There's a technical polish obviously present in terms of the production, but ultimately it's a poorly written and rushed affair that doesn't really highlight Ford's strengths all that well. This is a disappointment considering the strength of the films that have come before it, warts and all. This is mostly just warts.

Born Reckless (1930)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

John Ford drama about a wannabe gangster (Edmund Lowe) who gets busted after a heist but instead of going to prison, the judge makes a deal with him. Instead of jail the man will enlist for WW1 and if he serves his country proudly then the judge will throw out the evidence against him. This all goes well and the man returns home a war hero but he soon learns that his old gang has killed his brother in law so he goes out for revenge no matter what it might cost him. In the end, this film is killed by its standard and routine screenplay, which tries to do way too much and it doesn't do any of them in any original form. The movies tries to mix the gangster genre with a war genre with an added touch of the revenge drama but all three are boring and don't feature anything we hadn't seen countless times in the silent era. I've never been a fan of Lowe but he actually comes off decent here and plays the role off as well as can be expected. The supporting cast, including Lee Tracy, are all standard and forgettable. The climax of the movie is certainly the best thing and Ford's use of a swinging door leads to a great thing but there's nothing else going on here.