Corsair

I wasn't expecting much from this film. I watched it mainly because it stars two favorites of mine - Chester Morris and Thelma Todd. I was very pleasantly surprised. The film opens with John Hawks (Chester Morris), a collegiate football star, winning the big game. Later that night, at a society party, he meets Alison Corning (Thelma Todd) who personifies every argument in favor of the inheritance tax you've ever heard with the saying "spare the rod spoil the child" thrown in for good measure. She's beautiful, spoiled, used to getting whatever and whoever she wishes, and will do anything for a thrill. John's bad luck is that she wants him from first sight. She convinces her big Wall Street financier dad, "Steve" as she calls him, to give John a job at his firm. John is hardly enamored by Alison. He can see right through her, and on the surface that's got to be a pleasant experience for any guy, but then you get to the not-so-gooey middle. This is what repels him.

So John takes the job, not really knowing what to do after college anyways, but soon he sees that Alison is the apple that has not fallen far from the tree. Dad is all about making money and he doesn't care if he has to scam orphans and widows to do it. When John refuses to hard sell some worthless stock to an old lady in exchange for her solidly performing bonds he's tossed out without a second glance by dear old Steve.

John then decides to take to piracy on the high seas - after all it's not too different from what Alison's dad is doing - except he will steal from crooks not orphans and widows. John sets his sights on one bootlegger in particular, and with the help of a wealthy friend who backs him financially by helping him buy a boat (Frank McHugh as Chub), he starts to regularly hijack gangster "Big John's" haul of bootleg liquor and sell it to Steve, his old employer, who is into bootlegging himself as a sideline.

Now the problem here is that John doesn't spread the pain around to various bootleggers - he picks strictly on Big John's boats. He should realize that Big John did not get where he got by dropping out of Sunday school and sooner or later he is going to retaliate. I'll let you watch and see how this all shakes out.

I just thought it was very clever and timely for a filmmaker to equate the robber barons of Wall Street with piracy on the high seas. In fact, it makes pirates look noble compared to the Wall Street banksters. There's also some gritty reality thrown in via Mayo Methot's Sophie, the typist for Big John who's beautiful but beaten down by life in the Depression and the constant companionship of ruffians just trying to make a living. Her relationship with Ned Sparks' "Slim" is touching. Slim is one of Big John's men, and the couple is helping out John Hawks in his acts of piracy against Big John in return for a percentage, hoping to get out of "the life" once and for all. The ever present danger of getting caught - if they are lucky, by the law, if not so lucky, by Big John, makes them underplay their emotions for one another and their emotional caution turns out to be quite touching.

If you like Chester Morris or Thelma Todd, if you want to see a different kind of gangster film, if you think that many of the people running Goldman Sachs and AIG deserve to be cell mates with Bernie Madoff but will probably never learn their lesson from anybody or anything in this life, give this almost forgotten little film a chance.

Corsair (1931)

** (out of 4)

This is a rather interesting movie as it would turn out to be the final film for director West. The director would take time off after this film to do other business but of course this would end in scandal as his girlfriend, Thelma Todd, would be murdered and a lot of fingers pointed at West. Todd also appears in this film under the fake name of Alison Loyd. A former football star (Chester Morris) can't cut it on Wall Street and after being fired he swears to make money no matter what it takes. He decides to become a pirate and hijack boats carrying alcohol so that he can re-sell it on the streets. When the film finally ended after 74-minutes I was asking myself if that was it because there's really not too much going on. The film has a low budget, which keeps it from being more epic like I'm sure the director and stars wanted but West's direction keeps things floating throughout. The screenplay is pretty standard without many twists or turns in terms of the story. Being from the pre-code era and considering how much trouble West and Morris got into with Alibi I was expecting more in terms of grittiness but that's not here. The entire film plays pretty safe with the exception of one death scene on a hijacked boat but everything is pretty much lost with the really bad ending. I was also rather disappointed with the performance as Morris who has become one of my favorites. He really seems to sleepwalk through the role and doesn't have any of his normal charm. Todd, I'm guessing, tried a dramatic turn here, which might explain the name change but she doesn't come off any better. She certainly isn't bad in the film but she can't fill that Jean Harlow type role too well. Cagney's buddy Frank McHugh steals the film playing a drunk. Fans of the director might want to check this out since it turned out to be his last movie but I doubt too many find it that entertaining.

After being told that he hasn't the right stuff for making it on Wall Street, former All American Football player Chester Morris goes in for a different kind of piracy. He decides to become a real pirate and beat the man who told him he was no good on the street Emmet Corrigan at his own game.

Which in addition to Wall Street stock manipulations is bootlegging. Corrigan's role is eerily like that of Joseph P. Kennedy. Only this Wall Street pirate and bootlegger has a daughter played by Thelma Todd a rather spoiled young lady used to getting exactly what she wants.

Todd's the main problem, she gives a spiritless and perfunctory performance, so atypical of her. She has absolutely no chemistry. As for Morris he gets a bit too self righteous.

On the plus side when the hijacking of bootleggers like Fred Kohler gets going Corsair gets a bit of life pumped into it. Frank McHugh plays a part he would repeat over and over at Warner Brothers as the hero's best friend and sets the mold here. Kohler is one nasty customer as the bootlegger Morris robs.

Corsair is an interesting, but in some stages rather lifeless film.

This is really enjoyable. Its low IMDb rating is mainly because it's compared with Roland West's other two 'masterpieces.' It's not a great picture but if you like early thirties movies, you'll like this - it's still one of the better films of 1931.

Roland West was unquestionably a genius in terms of pushing the boundaries of the filmmaking technology to the limits and beyond. His first two sound features, the fabulous ALIBI and the interesting THE BAT WHISPERS were amongst the most outstanding and impressive very early talkies. His technical skill is also evident with this one but there's a problem. By 1931 other talented directors had caught up with him in terms of technical prowess and these seemed to understand what movies now needed to be. It wasn't enough just to be a technical genius, a director needed to get his actors to be real people.

Although in terms of imaginative camera angles and innovative fluidity conveying action, Mr West's direction is superb but his direction of his actors simply doesn't make them come alive to us . Like you find in a lot of films from the very early days of the talkies, the dialogue is horribly stilted with each actor saying their lines with the next one waiting in turn to say theirs. This however is not from the very early days of the talkies - it seems at times like you're watching a film from 1929. His style doesn't seem to have moved from the 20s to the 30s.

ALIBI immersed you a wonderful expressionist dream world. BAT purposely had a theatrical feel where stagey acting worked in that particular context. This however is meant to be realistic and Mr West doesn't quite manage to create that sense of reality. His leads played by Chester Morris and Thelma Todd are fascinating characters but we don't get to know them. Why they're the way they are is absolutely intriguing so you desperately want to know why they're like that and what makes them tick. In the hands of a more modern (well for 1931!) director, the characters' personalities are emotions could have been explored but West, the silent movie genius now seems like yesterday's man.

Possibly this turgidity was hampered by his choice of leads because his supporting actors are really good in this. He actually gets great natural performances from Ned Sparks and surprisingly even from Mayo Methot - in fact if these had been given the leads, this might have been a classic. Frank McHugh is also in this - looking younger than ever and as always, he's great fun.

Chester Morris however is completely unauthentic and out of his depth as the good guy who turns into a ruthless gangster (that role would have been ideal for Ricardo Cotez or even Fredric March but that's by the by). Thelma Todd might be fine as a foil in comedies but she's definitely not cut out as a dramatic leading lady (Mr West was of course somewhat enamoured with her at the time).

The poor characterisation of Morris and Todd doesn't however make this a bad film - it's actually head and shoulders above a lot of films from 1931. It's exciting, full of clever twists, it's beautifully put together and will keep you watching - it's just that you feel it should be a lot better.

Corsair (from 1931) is a real moldie-oldie, that, in spite of its obvious age and creakiness, still manages to be fairly entertaining, in the long run.

This 83-year-old Comedy/Romance/Adventure story tells the roundabout tale of how dashing, college, football hero, Johnny Hawkes, meets cheeky, spoilt, heiress, Alison Corning.

Before long Hawkes finds himself captain of the Corsair (a sleek, high-speed gunboat).

Imminent danger lurks everywhere once Hawkes and his crew begin dealing with ruthless, modern-day pirates involved in big-time liquor smuggling.

With its story set mainly in the West Indies, Corsair (at 72 minutes) certainly had its fair share of high-seas action, violence and double-crosses.

This fast-paced story starred blond beauty, Thelma Todd (murdered at 29) and early-talkies heart-throb, Chester Morris (suicide at 69).