The Beast of the City (1932)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Beast of the City (1932) – C. Brabin

Who is the titular Beast of the City? Is it Prohibition-Era gangster Sam Belamonte (Jean Hersholt)? This would be the most obvious choice, given Hollywood’s obsession with gangsters in the Pre-Code days (noting that Prohibition was still in effect when this film was made). Little Caesar and The Public Enemy were released the year before and Scarface just a month or two afterwards, to note some key films in the popular genre. In fact, The Beast of the City is in some ways a reaction to the popularity of the gangster film, with its opening title card including a quote from President Herbert Hoover suggesting that movies should glorify the heroic police rather than the cowardly gangsters. So, is the film’s lead police officer, Fighting Fitzpatrick (Walter Huston), the real Beast of the City? He’s known for not holding back in his crusade against the bootleggers – and the final scene of the movie, at that point the most violent in all of cinema, reveals his willingness to take his fight to the limit. Another candidate might be Fighting Fitz’s brother, Ed (Wally Ford), a vice squad detective who betrays the force after falling for bad dame Daisy Stevens (Jean Harlow).  Of course, Harlow herself is pretty wild here and perhaps even beastly? Although the film plays by the numbers, it still holds interest, not least for its snapshot of a point-in-time (racist though that occasionally is) and its use of actors who appeared in even greater films.