Black Widow (1954)

After saying goodbye to his actress wife Iris (Gene Tierney) at the airport, Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin) decides to make an appearance at a party being thrown by their neighbor, Lottie (Ginger Rogers), a fellow actress. Peter really doesn’t want to go, but he finds it hard to make excuses not to when he lives in the same building as the host. At the party, he meets 20-something-year-old Nancy “Nanny” Ordway (Peggy Ann Garner).

Like lots of young people, Nanny has recently come to New York City full of ambition and looking to start a successful career as a writer. Peter is very happily married and has no interest in having an affair, but he likes to help people who are just getting started, so he offers to take her out to dinner, making his platonic intentions very clear. After that night, he continues his friendship with Nanny and when she says her apartment isn’t very conducive to writing, he agrees to let her work from his luxurious apartment while he’s at work during the day.

When Iris returns from her trip, she and Peter arrive at their apartment and discover that Nanny has committed suicide. But once the police get involved, it becomes clear there was foul play involved. Iris was well aware of Peter’s friendship with Nanny and never felt threatened by it…until the investigation gets underway. Once the police investigation begins, though, some evidence comes forward that makes Peter look like the prime suspect. Determined to prove his innocence, Peter has to do some investigating to clear his name.

Black Widow isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not a great movie, either. The story is nothing innovative or groundbreaking, but it’s entertaining enough to watch at least once. There are certainly far worse ways you could spend 95 minutes. But I have a slight soft spot for it since there’s something about film noir movies that were filmed in Technicolor that I really like (I don’t know why really, just one of my many random fixations.) Also, because it has a poster that is far more scandalous than the movie actually is. (Seriously, why does the woman on this poster have long hair? Nanny has super short hair, nor is she nearly that vampy.)

Black Widow has a lot of big stars, but none of them are at their best in it. Gene Tierney in particular is extremely under utilized in it, so if you’re watching it for her, you may be disappointed. George Raft was pretty underwhelming in his role as a detective working the case. And although I liked some of Lottie’s sassier quips, it’s not one of Ginger’s finest roles, but it’s not a terrible one, either, especially considering where she was at that point in her career.  This was one of the last feature films she made before mostly moving into television and stage roles, so while Black Widow is no Kitty Foyle, it doesn’t even come close to Trog or Sextette territory, either. The best performance of the movie comes from Peggy Ann Garner, who unfortunately, doesn’t get top billing even though she deserved it more than most of the other actors in this movie.

Scarface (1932)

Tony Camonte is a young, ambitious gangster, emphasis on the word ‘ambitious.’  When we first meet him in Scarface, he’s working for gangster Johnny Lovo.  Lovo sends Tony out to bump off Big Louie Costillo, the criminal kingpin who runs the South side of town.  With Costillo out of the picture, Lovo and Tony are the new reigning kings of the South side and supply lots of speakeasies with their bootleg booze.  But soon, Tony sets his sights higher than just running the South side of town.  He also wants to run the North side, but Lovo tells him not to mess with the Irish gangs that run the North side.  Tony doesn’t listen though and starts a gang war.  He manages to take down O’Hara, the original North side gang leader, but then Gaffney (Boris Karloff) takes over and orchestrates a massive attack on a cafe where Tony and his gang are.  Instead of killing him, they just introduce Tony to the exciting world of Tommy guns instead.

Realizing that Tony was completely out of control, Lovo decides the only way to stop him was to put a hit out on Tony.  But once again, Tony manages to escape death and in return, puts a hit out on Lovo.  At last Tony has exactly what he wanted: control of the city, Lovo’s position, and even Lovo’s girlfriend, Poppy.  But now he’s also got his younger sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak) to worry about.  She’s starting to take an interest in her brother’s lifestyle and at first, he’s not happy that she shows up at a nightclub he hangs out at.  But then while he’s out-of-town avoiding the law, she marries Tony’s best friend Guino (George Raft).  When Tony finds out about it, he kills Guino.  Later, when the police track Tony down and are ready for a shoot-out with him, a heartbroken Cesca shows up at Tony’s place ready to kill him.  But once she gets there, she can’t go through with it and instead, gets caught up in the frenzy and helps her brother fight off the police.

Gangster movies in the 1930s were often met with controversy because censorship boards were afraid that they glorified gangsters.  This explains why movies like Scarface and The Public Enemy have those messages at the beginning about how the movie is meant to expose the horrors of being a gangster and condemn that lifestyle.  But in spite of the controversy, three of the greatest gangster movies of all time came out of the early 1930s: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface.  Of the three, I think Scarface is definitely the  most shockingly violent.  What sets Tony Camonte apart from Tom Powers and Rico is Paul Muni’s unrestrained glee.  If he’s being fired at, Tony lights up like a kid in a candy store and truly delights in firing right back.  And am I the only one who finds Tony’s relationship with Cesca to be a little bit weird?  I believed him as the protective older brother when he drags her out of the nightclub, but then when he rips part of her dress off of her struck me as rather creepy.  But perhaps the most shocking thing about Scarface is that it actually has some funny moments in it.  Specifically, when the cafe is being fired at and Tony’s assistant is only concerned with making his phone call instead of the chaos that is going on all around him.

I’ve actually never seen the 1983 version of Scarface, so I don’t know how exactly how it compares, but the 1932 version is most definitely essential viewing for gangster movie fans.  I watched it for the first time specifically to write this review and I’m quite surprised that I managed to go this long without seeing it.