In 1948, William Boyd made a large bet on television, and on demographics. He had an idea that the first wave of the baby boomers — kids born to newly affluent parents — would be a large and untapped audience for the 66 “Hopalong Cassidy” movie westerns he’d starred in, so he bought the rights and sold them to TV stations that were starved for programming. He also made deals with dozens of consumer goods companies to market authorized Hopalong Cassidy merchandise, from wallpaper to cookies to roller skates with spurs on them. America’s kids snapped them up, and Boyd made millions.
The 1932 film "State's Attorney" and its 1937 remake, "Criminal Lawyer," are based on the same story by Louis Stevens.
But in the hands of different screenwriters working under different production codes -- and performed by lead actors with distinctively different styles -- you get two, well, different movies.
Stevens's story is about a flamboyant attorney who's the mouthpiece for a big-city gangster. Thanks to the gangster's influence, the attorney becomes the chief prosecutor and starts dreaming of the governorship. But then the gangster commits murder, and, thanks to the love of a good woman, the attorney risks the wrath of his biggest backer -- not to mention his life -- to see that justice is done.
Both films follow that plot. In the 1932 film, John Barrymore plays the attorney, named Tom Cardigan. In the 1937 film, Lee Tracy plays the attorney, named Barry Brandon.
The screenplay for the Barrymore film, "State's Attorney," was written by Rowland Brown and Gene Fowler. Brown was responsible for some tough, notable pre-code movies, including "Hell's Highway" and "Doorway to Hell." Fowler was a longtime Barrymore crony -- he kept vigil at Barrymore's deathbed and later wrote the Barrymore biography "Good Night, Sweet Prince."
So the character of Cardigan is very much colored by what seems like Barrymore himself -- a wisecracking blend of impishness and melancholy, with plenty of boozing thrown in. Barrymore slides from comedy to drama with great grace and style. He doesn't look like he's acting, which is the best kind of acting.
The Tracy film, "Criminal Lawyer," is likewise heavily colored by its leading man, which isn't necessarily a good thing.
Tracy's screen persona was that of a fast-talking operator who was often just this side of being a con artist. Barrymore knew how to let silence work for him; with the characters Tracy played, there aren't any moments of silence, because to stop talking meant that the rubes were more likely to catch on to your scheme.
Beyond that, the script for "Criminal Lawyer," written by G.V. Atwater and Thomas Lennon, is scrubbed clean of spice. Sure, there's crime aplenty, but very little of that sex stuff.
Both movies begin with a party thrown by the gangster -- in the 1932 film it's Valentine "Vanny" Powers, played by William Boyd, and in the 1937 film it's Larkin, played by Eduardo Ciannelli (seen with Tracy at left).
The party is raided, and we end up at night court. In both movies, the gangster orders the attorney to sweet talk the female judge into releasing the party without bail. But the attorney is feeling contrary, so instead he makes sure the judge sets bail -- at fifty bucks a person, which the gangster grudgingly pays.
Here is where things begin to diverge.
Next up on the night court docket is a woman -- in the 1932 film she's June, played by Helen Twelvetrees; in the 1937 film it's Madge, played by Margot Grahame.
Both women have been picked up for soliciting, although in the 1932 film it's much clearer. June, in fact, works for Vanny, which means he also does some pimping on the side. But as opposed to Vanny's well-heeled patrons, she really does need help, and Cardigan jumps in. First he reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a wedding band, and slips it on June's finger. Then he stands before the judge and proceeds to pull on her heartstrings:
This is a pretty cynical scene, but Barrymore plays it completely straight and practically makes you believe him. As Brandon, Tracy isn't as conniving as Cardigan -- he doesn't carry a wedding band in his pocket. Madge is already wearing a costume jewelry ring, so he turns it so that its large setting is hidden and only the band shows. Oh, and Madge doesn't work for the gangster -- she's apparently a freelancer.
The way Cardigan cross-examines the cop who arrested June also has more of a pre-code bite. Seems the cop served a hitch in reform school, and if we don't get the point that he's a bad egg we hear that after being paroled he was sent back again for torturing a dog. In "Criminal Lawyer" we don't hear anything about that.
In both movies, the attorney ends up taking the woman back to his place. Cardigan gently removes June's coat and pours her a drink, and she asks him what he wants for breakfast in the morning. Brandon, on the other hand, wastes no time in getting Madge an apartment in his building. No impropriety (or breakfast, for that matter) here! June is pretty clearly kept by Cardigan, but not Madge -- she goes to work in Brandon's office, where she can gaze at him longingly.
Once they become chief prosecutors, both attorneys hitch their star to a headline-heavy murder case -- a housewife (named Nora Dean in the 1932 film, Nora James in 1937) is accused of killing her husband as he slept. Nora whoever contends it happened during a break-in. Both attorneys are determined to break down Nora on the stand, and the 1932 treatment is much more lurid than the 1937 one. Cardigan has the bed where the murder take place brought into the courtroom, so that the jurors can see the bloody sheets. Then he takes the murder weapon -- an iron sashweight -- and incessantly taps it on the metal bed as he questions the suspect. In the 1937 film, there are no such histrionics, and Brandon takes only about five seconds to elicit a confession from Nora:
Romantic rivals rear their ugly heads in both movies in the form of the spoiled daughter of a political kingmaker. In the 1932 film it's Jill Esmond as Lillian, who purrs lines like "to me there's something thrilling about a woman killing for love." She's hot to trot for Cardigan, who willingly (if drunkenly) marries her to ensure his political success, even if it means shafting June. Her 1937 film equivalent, Betty, played by Betty Lawford (Peter's cousin), is kind of wan, and she shanghais Brandon into marrying her.
In both movies, however, the woman's character is quickly disposed of because the attorneys quickly have second thoughts, and because the women have eager suitors waiting in the wings. And as luck would have it, both suitors are played by actors with tangential relationships to Astaire-Rogers musicals.
In the 1932 version, Lillian is wooed by Alvarez, played by Raul Roulien, who would also play Gene Raymond's rival for Dolores Del Rio's affections in "Flying Down to Rio." In the 1937 film, Brandon's romantic rival is Bandini, played by Erik Rhodes (left), the comic actor best known as the Italian gigolo in "The Gay Divorcee" and "Top Hat."
There's a scene in both movies where the attorney meets with the suitor and lets him know that he's cutting the daughter loose. In the 1937 film, it's done with lots of mugging from Rhodes, and in the 1932 version it's done over a glass of saline laxative -- see for yourself:
The dramatic climax of both movies comes when the gangster goes on trial for murdering a rival ("Bird Legs" Duffy in the 1932 film and "Bird Dog" Duffy in the 1937 film, if you must know). The murder was witnessed by June/Madge, but she won't talk for fear the gangster will harm Cardigan/Brandon. In the 1932 version, there's an even stronger reason for Cardigan to back off from prosecution -- he himself was a burglar and served time in reform school.
And the ending, the same in both movies, is what you'd expect for that time -- the attorney walks out of the courtroom with his self-respect intact, along with the woman who stood with him through thick and thin.
We'll close with one more moment from the Barrymore movie -- a drunken conversation between Cardigan and a carriage driver where Cardigan is plinking out the wedding march on a series of half-full glasses of beer:
The 1931 film "City Streets" is blessed visually in several ways. One is by the smooth, innovative direction of Rouben Mamoulian, who in this film introduces one storytelling technique that today's movies are still using. Another is the atmospheric photography by Lee Garmes, who also shot "Scarface," "Gone with the Wind" and "Nightmare Alley." And then there's the presence of a tall, handsome drink of water named Gary Cooper.
Cooper plays a character called simply "the Kid" -- a straight shooter who also happens to be a crack shot. At this point, Cooper was also a legendary ladies man, with a line of conquests that included Clara Bow and Lupe Velez, and it's easy to see why -- aside from his physical attractiveness, he radiates strength and confidence.
Born Frank Cooper in Montana, our hero took up horseback riding as a kind of physical therapy to recuperate from a hip injury he suffered in a car accident. This made him a natural for western roles, such as in "The Virginian" and "The Man From Wyoming," but his cowboy's nonchalance wasn't restricted to the range -- for instance, as a Foreign Legionnaire taken by Marlene Dietrich in "Morocco," he might as well be wearing chaps.
"City Streets" begins with the Kid working at a carnival, where he runs the shooting gallery and amazes the spectators with his trick gun work. His best girl is Nan (Sylvia Sidney). She's a good kid with just one fault -- she's loyal to her nogoodnik stepfather (Guy Kibbee), who works as a "bodyguard" for bootlegger Big Fella (Paul Lukas).
Big Fella's catchphrase is "no hard feelings," which is gangster-speak for "very hard feelings indeed, and you will be riddled with bullets as soon as I can step out of the way." We first get a look at Big Fella as he's collecting protection money from a reluctant client:
I think we all know the moral to this story: never get your hat personalized.
Nan and the Kid want to get married, but they can't on his gallery salary. She tries to talk him into joining Big Fella's gang, but he's reluctant. Then when Big Fella's main rival is killed with stepfather's gun, Nan's loyalty is put to the test. She's found guilty of withholding evidence and is sent to prison. While there, she sours on the mob and is grateful that the Kid isn't mixed up in it. But he is. He tells her the news during a prison visit, and later that night it's still rattling around in her head:
(The voiceover in Nan's head is making its first movie appearance. Nicely done, Mamoulian.)
Once Nan is released from stir, she wants to pry the Kid loose from Big Fella's clutches. But Big Fella is more interested in getting his clutches around Nan. The Kid and Big Fella have a showdown over Nan, and Big Fella decides its time to rub out the Kid. But Nan pretends to be interested in Big Fella in order to save the Kid's life. Then one of Big Fella's old girlfriends (Wynne Gibson) shoots him and frames Nan. Everybody wants to nab Nan, but the Kid takes control of the mob in this skillfully edited scene:
"City Streets" is based on a Dashiell Hammett story and adapted by Max Marcin, the man behind the "Crime Doctor" radio and film series of the 1930s and '40s. It has the narrative drive you'd expect from a Warner Bros. gangster movie with the European visual flair of a Paramount film. That style flows all the way through to the final scene -- the Kid and Nan have escaped from the mob and crank up Wagner on the car radio as the camera pans up to birds circling in the sky.
Here are full cast and credits for "City Streets."
