Outside the Law (1930)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie has director Tod Browning remake one of the Priscilla Dean underworld thrillers he had directed before he had hooked up with Lon Chaney. In fact, the earlier version had Chaney as one of the principal roles. In this version, bank robber Owen Moore works with gorgeous moll Mary Nolan to cheat underworld boss Edward G. Robinson out of what he considers his rightful cut of any crime committed in San Francisco. Like many a Browning picture, people are insane, particularly Miss Nolan.The problem with this movie, like many she appeared in, is that star Mary Nolan's acting... well, she has improved from some of her earlier works. As one of Browning's insane characters, I find her senseless mood changes and talking to herself convincing; it's when she interacts with other people that I find her unbelievable.Everyone gets to be weird, even Rockcliffe Fellowes as the police captain trying to track down the bank robbers, and whose annoying son, played by one of the innumerable Watson clan, breaks into their hide-out, since they all live in the same building.It's clear that Miss Nolan is the star of this movie - she gets more tics and twitches than anyone else, although Robinson shines in the sort of gangster role he would play at Warner Brothers. It's Miss Nolan's movie to carry, and she does a poor job of it, although Browning's usual insane world filled with mad people certainly kept my interest up.

Before Edward G. Robinson had his career role in Little Caesar he did a few films including a couple of silent movies and in several of them played a gangster. Watching Outside The Law you think you are watching Robinson in a dress rehearsal for Little Caesar.All the snarling all the mannerisms are there for Robinson in this film. He plays a gangland boss who likes to control all the crime action in his are and get his cut. But Owen Moore and moll Mary Nolan aren't splitting with anybody when they pull a bank job. So it's a question of whether the cops will get them or Robinson.Nolan though she overacts considerably as did just about everyone in those early talkies. She tries to vamp Robinson, but he's as uninterested as he was in Little Caesar.Curiously enough both Moore and Nolan were coming close to the end of their respective careers. Both were known for high living and partying away in the Roaring Twenties. They both died too young.But Robinson was just getting started and you'll swear you are seeing Little Caesar. Had he been the main character as he was in Little Caesar this could have been the breakout role for him. Tod Browning directed this film and it's remake of one he did ten years earlier with Lon Chaney. A real treat for fans of Eddie Robinson.

Around 1979 or so I was in MOMA and decided to look at the film collection. They had two movies that day that I saw. One was a silent film entitled THE FIELD OF HONOR starring Allan Holubar, a prominent early actor/director/producer. That was a silent film set in the Civil War. Then there was this movie. It was not a great film, but I was curious to see it because Robinson was in it. It is not one of Robinson's best films so it is rarely revived (I don't even think it has been shown on TCM or AMC or Channel 13. The interesting thing is that Owen Moore is the hero and Mary Nolan the heroine. They are "good criminals" as opposed to Robinson who is a violent boss - thug. This was made before the full effect of the movie code, the "Hays Office", the Catholic Legion of Decency, etc. was felt, so that at the end despite the arrest of Moore and Nolan (Robinson gets bumped off), you feel the jury is going to be easy on them - however, the final verdict is not heard by the movie audience. Aside from Robinson, only Louise Beavers (a few years before her great performance in the original IMITATION OF LIFE) and Rockliffe Fellows are recalled - Fellows because he played the criminal Alky Briggs, who engineers the kidnapping of Zeppo's girlfriend in the Marx Brothers film MONKEY BUSINESS. Nolan has a choice moment (again, before the full effect of movie code censorship occurred) when she is forcibly grabbed by the slimy Robinson, and she rubs the spot with her hand as though she is using the world's heaviest piece of steel wool on the spot. Robinson is enjoying the moment. It is like a companion to his moment in the more memorable KEY LARGO when he is seen whispering something sordid to Lauren Bacall. We never hear it, but his facial look is so disgustingly suggestive we love watching her haul off and slap his face at the end of the moment. In that case, though, Robinson did not like the result of the moment.

This flick has Robinson in his vintage character form as a gangster named Cobra, with his cigars and his infamous "Ny'a See". Fingers and Connie play a robbery team thats moving in on Cobra's turf and is forced to hid out from the law, and Cobra. Nothing great about this film that should make one go crazy to see it. The most enjoyable parts in the movie is Robinson doing his ol' mob boss routine where it almost gets humorous.