Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Distributor: Warner Bros,
Top Billed Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner
Won 0 Oscars
Nominated for 1 more:
Outstanding Production - First National
Plot: A murder case is dug up by a sleazy newspaper and people talk on phones.
Distributor: Warner Bros,
Top Billed Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner
Won 0 Oscars
Nominated for 1 more:
Outstanding Production - First National
Plot: A murder case is dug up by a sleazy newspaper and people talk on phones.
Mervyn LeRoy's follow up to Little Caesar (1931), one of the most influential gangster movies of the era, is a little known gem called Five Star Final (1931). This is the type of movie that makes me glad I do this project. This only got nominated for Best Picture and it might not have if the nominees were not expanded to eight in 1931-1932. As we can witness in modern day cinema, the front runners for Best Picture are not always the best movies of the year. Edward G. Robinson, who famously jump started his career in the aforementioned Little Caesar (1931), puts on a tremendous performance along with a very creepy Boris Karloff in a rare non-horror role. This picture lives up to its pre-Code status. A conversation about breasts and numerous instances of drunkenness would not have been present if this movie was made a couple of years later.
The acting had to be top notch in this movie due to the nature of it being adapted from a play. The majority of the film took place in either the newspaper office or the home of Nancy Vorhees, the woman who murdered her husband twenty years prior to the setting of the movie. Robinson and Karloff knock it out of the park, as well as H.B. Warner's performance in the pivotal scene. Another exceptional component of this movie is its editing. Not only does the story flow between the two set pieces nicely, the scene in which Frances Starr (Nancy Vorhees) is trying to talk to Robinson's character on the phone is delightful. The film is spliced so that Starr takes up the middle of the screen while Robinson and Oscar Apfel's character, the owner of the newspaper, take up the margins of the screen whenever they pick up the phone to speak to her. It is not impressive at all to today's standards, but it is great to see editing like that in a 1931 movie.
Although the movie did seem to flow nicely between the sets, certain scenes did seem to drag on. I sometimes got bored when the murderess' daughter and her soon to be husband acted so romantic on screen. I understand the role of this to the story, but some instances were a but much. It also took a little too much time to get into the meat of the Vorhees story arc of the picture. I write this often, but I wish there was a score involved as well. It really felt like a dry play without any music whatsoever.
This movie makes it difficult to pick out many negative aspects. The acting is great, the story flows well, and the editing is great. However, nothing stands out too much. This is far from a masterpiece, but still very serviceable.
My Score: 7/10
The acting had to be top notch in this movie due to the nature of it being adapted from a play. The majority of the film took place in either the newspaper office or the home of Nancy Vorhees, the woman who murdered her husband twenty years prior to the setting of the movie. Robinson and Karloff knock it out of the park, as well as H.B. Warner's performance in the pivotal scene. Another exceptional component of this movie is its editing. Not only does the story flow between the two set pieces nicely, the scene in which Frances Starr (Nancy Vorhees) is trying to talk to Robinson's character on the phone is delightful. The film is spliced so that Starr takes up the middle of the screen while Robinson and Oscar Apfel's character, the owner of the newspaper, take up the margins of the screen whenever they pick up the phone to speak to her. It is not impressive at all to today's standards, but it is great to see editing like that in a 1931 movie.
Although the movie did seem to flow nicely between the sets, certain scenes did seem to drag on. I sometimes got bored when the murderess' daughter and her soon to be husband acted so romantic on screen. I understand the role of this to the story, but some instances were a but much. It also took a little too much time to get into the meat of the Vorhees story arc of the picture. I write this often, but I wish there was a score involved as well. It really felt like a dry play without any music whatsoever.
This movie makes it difficult to pick out many negative aspects. The acting is great, the story flows well, and the editing is great. However, nothing stands out too much. This is far from a masterpiece, but still very serviceable.
My Score: 7/10