You can't learn 'im - he spells tooken with two o's!

blanche-2

Edgar G. Robinson has the hounds yapping at his rear in "A Slight Case of Murder," a very funny 1938 comedy from Warner Brothers. Robinson sends up his gangster image as Remy Marko (who speaks of himself in the third person), who is a legit brewer now that Prohibition has been repealed. He has a daughter (Jane Bryan) in one of the best schools in Europe. However, his brewery has been steadily failing because his beer tastes horrible - and no one's told him. The bank is calling his half a million dollar mortgage, his daughter comes home engaged to a state trooper, and when he arrives at his country home, one of his men finds four dead bodies who had been playing cards in an upstairs bedroom. On top of all of this, he's chosen a young boy from his alma mater, an orphanage, to spend the summer in Saratoga. Let's put it this way - the head of the orphanage asked that this kid, Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom, be released from the cellar in order to accompany Remy. No bright spots anywhere.

Robinson is a riot as a complete thug who believes he should be President of the Community Chest, and Ruth Donnelly is good back-up as his wife who yells at the gangsters who surround her if they don't call her ma'm and act like servants. When their daughter's fiancé arrives in uniform, the couple is thrown into a complete panic because they think the police want them for something. When his well-to-do parents arrive, Remy agrees to accept them even though they have a cop in the family, to the complete effrontery of the boy's father. Then the four dead bodies - who are believed disposed of on the various porches of Remy's enemies - show up again, and the orphans finds the spoils of a robbery.

It's non-stop chaos and giggles. Robinson plays his part like he's Little Caesar and he's fabulous. Allen Jenkins is very good as one of his henchmen, and Jane Bryan, who would quit her career to marry the owner of Rexall Drugs, is lovely as his daughter. Her fiancé, played by tall, athletic Willard Parker, may be recognizable to baby boomers from "Tales of the Texas Rangers." Here, he's serious and uptight, which the role calls for, and seems older than his 26 or so years.

Extremely enjoyable and really shows that Robinson, like Bogart and Cagney, could do just about anything.

score 7/10

blanche-2 27 December 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1555020/