LADY KILLER (Warner Bros. 1933) Warner Home Video

Of all the cockeyed crime/comedy capers to emerge from Warner Bros., Roy Del Ruth’s Lady Killer (1933) is perhaps the most joyously unhinged and downright crazy of the lot. Based on a legitimate short story, ‘The Finger Man’ by Rosalind Keating Shaffer, the screenplay by Ben Markson and Lillie Hayward plays it strictly for laughs. Resident studio bad boy, James Cagney, who only two years earlier had cut his teeth playing the ruthless grapefruit-in-the-face -smashing Public Enemy is, herein, a gangster’s chump and romantic fop more likely to walk away with the guts of that aforementioned fruit splattered across his visage. With the exception of one powerful scene in which Cagney hauls off and drags a woman out of his boudoir by the hair, any tension that might have arisen from this otherwise slightly tawdry tale is utterly defused in favor of a quick shot, free and easy. The story opens with Dan Quigley (Cagney) a smart-mouthed, shoot-from-the-hip usher at one of New York’s big-time movie palaces. Dan’s not bad, per say. But his heart isn’t into tearing ticket stubs for the paying customer. His spare moments between flicks are spent shooting craps in the men’s washroom. Eventually fired, Dan eyeballs femme fatale, Myra Gale (Mae Clark) in the lobby of a swank hotel. Unaware Myra’s purse-dropping routine is a prelude to a ruse that lures unsuspecting gamblers back to the fixed game of Spade Maddock (Douglas Dumbrille) and his cronies, Dan walks right into this rigged set-up and loses fifty bucks.

Figuring out the score, Dan forces Spade to give him back his cash when another pigeon arrives to be bilked at the apartment. Thereafter, Dan becomes an integral part of Spade’s fix. In no time at all, Dan, Myra, Spade and his motley crew are running a posh nightclub that is raking in the dough. However, Spade is a greedy little bugger; the proverbial leopard who will never be able to change his spots. When Spade seizes upon the idea of turning from legitimate business to robbing the homes of wealthy patrons that frequent his club, Dan goes along with the idea in his sort of devil-may-care playful way until he is set up to take the fall for a jewel heist at the estate of Mrs. Marley (Marjorie Gateman) where a maid is accidentally murdered.  Escaping custody, Dan goes to Hollywood where he becomes an extra in the movies. Dressed as a Sioux Chieftain, Dan accidentally meets and falls for film siren, Lois Underwood (Margaret Linsay). To boost his own credibility and gain bigger roles opposite Lois, Dan writes his own fan mail – convincing studio bosses he ought to be their newest leading man.

Unfortunately, at the moment Dan’s popularity begins to soar, Myra reenters Dan’s life – as do Spade and his henchmen later on. They threaten to derail Dan’s hopes for the future unless he goes along with their plans to begin a crime wave among these rich and famous in Beverly Hills. Dan tries to bribe the gang – then, expose them. He is framed for the heist of Myra’s jewels and incarcerated. Spade, recognizing his crime spree will be over if Dan tells the truth at trial, puts up Dan’s bail money for an early release. Spade further tells Myra to drive Dan out of the city limits where he and his gang will be waiting to silence Dan once and for all. Fortunately, Dan has already figured out their dastardly plan. He tips off the cops – leading to a fast chase and shootout that climaxes in Dan being reunited with Lois before the final fade out.

Pulpy, clichéd and downright silly, Lady Killer is not one Warner Bros. movie, but a bizarre amalgam of three or four irreconcilable plots and genres jumbled together into one crazy quilt of a fairly dead-end narrative. The opening scenes play like a serious crime/melodrama from the studio’s early vintage - right up until the heist gone wrong at the Marley estate. However, once Dan makes it into Hollywood the action is played strictly as screwball with Cagney’s larger-than-life gangster persona given the ole heave-ho as an oddity of a fish-out-of-water ilk. He goes from goon to sap, then, romantic bungler, a violent anti-social outcast, and finally, a matinee idol on the lam. There is no consistency to these transitions – perfunctory at best, nor to any of the other characters who populate this bizarre tale. Myra is crudely drawn as a tough-as-nails scheming vixen who intercepts Dan’s happiness at every chance before taking him into her confidence in the last act to spare his life. Spade is a two parts Edward G. Robinson to one-part Buster Keaton – an evil doer whose heart is as crookedly ill-fixed for larceny as it remains uninspired by his life of crime. In the end, Lady Killer is a diluted, if only occasionally diverting claptrap; its ultimate message - ‘crime doesn’t pay’ - hosed down with a special amendment for Dan…only sometimes!

Warner Home Video’s DVD transfer is just a tad below average. Age has not been kind to these film elements. Despite considerable clean up and adequately reproduced contrast levels with a smattering of fine detail throughout, the image is marred throughout by age related artifacts and a very unevenly reproduced roughness with considerable film grain present. Dissolves and wipes suffer the most. While the image can appear sharp at times, it mostly suffers from a rather soft characteristic. The audio is mono and more strident than expected – very scratchy in spots. Extras include a very informative audio commentary from Drew Casper and shorts and trailers a la Warner Night at The Movies. I’ll confess, I have never been able to warm to Dr. Casper – who begins every commentary by pointing out to his listeners he is a university-educated professor and recipient of the Alfred and Alma Hitchcock ‘something or other’ for distinguished excellence. Just what that has to do with his ability to speak intelligently about a movie as unintelligently put together as Lady Killer is, frankly, beyond me.  It’s Casper’s dull-as-paint delivery of the facts thereafter, and pinched-nose presentation, as though he is imparting the gospel, that has always left me dull and despondent at the end of his tracks. He clearly knows his stuff. But he never engages the listener, and, I suspect, rather enjoys distancing himself from the ‘average’ movie buff and novice, which his tone implies to possess a sincere contempt towards. Enough said.  Lady Killer is not a great movie, and Casper’s commentary did not improve it for me. The DVD is mediocre at best. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

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