Screen violence sure has changed some in the last 90 years. This film had to be edited for violent content when it was released originally. People pointed to it as an example of how films had gotten too violent. Yet, watching it now, there's no swearing, no nudity, no blood. Many of the killings are technically offscreen and the deaths are so theatric that they don't even register as real. Would this movie get a PG rating now?
I don't have a ton to say about the movie. I see its influence in the gangster films that followed, and I appreciate the boundaries it pushed up against at the time. Paul Muni is good in the lead role. This is a very sound-stagey movie though. It doesn't even seem that ambitious for 1931. Just violent. Considering it was in the same box office as Dracula and Cimarron, it doesn't even seem like that shocking of a movie. It's OK though.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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