- Messages
- 17,181
- Location
- New York City
"Larceny, Inc." 1942
Watching basically affable crooks discover they can actually make an honestly living provided the best spark of fun in the movie.
- A mishmash of recycled plots - bank robbers move into the store next to a bank to tunnel in - but discover they can make legitimate money in the store they took over and initially dismissed.
- Too much screwball comedy stuff - they hit a water line tunneling toward the bank (yawn, funny if seeing grown men get soaked by water and sliding around is funny)
- But Edward G Robinson and speed make it work anyway.
- Robinson is an actor who can create memorable characters when given excellent material ("Double Indemnity") and can add credibility and carry a movie when it's, basically, a weak effort like this
- This one is all his show and he propels it along with intensity, irony and his force-of-nature presence (inside that stocky, mis-shappened, diminutive body)
- There's an echo of Cagney's later performance in "One, Two, Three" where, in this case, Robinson's energy and rapid-fire delivery of the dialogue whips the movie past its plot flaws and silliness
- Jack Carson - alway better not hamming it up as he does too much here - and Jane Wyman - disconcertingly as a blonde - try to provide a romantic spark, but had they teed up someone for Robinson, it would have been better
Watching basically affable crooks discover they can actually make an honestly living provided the best spark of fun in the movie.