Beast of the City, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Oct 15, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
-
Director
Charles BrabinRelease Date(s)
1932 (September 30, 2025)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: C-
Review
In the wake of gangster movie hits like Scarface, The Public Enemy, and Little Caesar, the administration of President Herbert Hoover approached MGM—the most conservative of Hollywood studios—proposed they produce a different kind of film. Hoover himself is quoted in The Beast of the City’s prologue: “Instead of the glorification of cowardly gangsters, we need the glorification of policemen who do their duty and give their lives in public protection. If the police had the vigilant, universal backing of public opinion in their communities, if they had the implacable support of the prosecuting authorities and the courts—I am convinced that our police would stamp out the excessive crime—which has disgraced some of our great cities.”
However, The Beast of the City apparently didn’t quite turn out how studio head Louis B. Mayer imagined, and though the film proved popular, he relegated it to the bottom-half of double-bills. This pre-Code cops vs. gangster story, co-written by W.R. Burnett, is generally fast-paced, violent and exciting, though, rather like the MGM release Gabriel Over the White House, also headlined by Walter Huston, its reactionary solution to the organized crime problem is even more extreme than the later, neo-fascist Dirty Harry series.
Tireless big city police captain Jim Fitzpatrick (Huston) has a kid brother also on the job, Police Det. Ed Fitzpatrick (Wallace Ford). Ed is seduced by Daisy (Jean Harlow), a moll associate of gangster Sam Belmonte (Danish Jean Hersholt, shorn of mustache and made-up to resemble Al Capone). Her living it up with Ed, he trying vainly to maintain the standards to which Daisy has become accustomed, soon puts the naïve policeman badly into debt. When his older brother refuses to promote him, Ed agrees to conspire with the incredibly-named Belmonte lieutenant Pietro Cholo (Irish-American J. Carroll Naish) on a hijacking job that goes terribly wrong, resulting in the death of a small child and a police officer. Ed and members of Belmonte’s gang go on trial, but the corrupt, mob-influenced judicial system all but ensures a not-guilty verdict.
What’s a lawman like Jim Fitzpatrick, temporarily demoted then appointed Chief of Police, to do?
The ludicrous blurring of nationalities and by those playing gangsters has the effect of turning the criminal element in The Beast of the City into generic ugly foreigners. The opening titles play over a caricature worthy of the worst Nazi antisemitism, though it most resembles the monster from the Mexican-made cult film The Brainiac. (Spoilers!) The climax is like the blood-spurting finale of The Wild Bunch, with Huston’s Fitzpatrick enlisting a dozen or so loyal (and white) fellow cops for a suicidal ambush of Belmonte and his men, leaving almost everyone dead on both sides. This level of taking the law into one’s own hands vigilantism is more extreme than any of the neo-fascist fantasies of ‘70s cinema. The cops in Death Wish were trying to stop Charles Bronson’s vigilante, not join in.
The film is notable for featuring two of MGM’s biggest stars of the 1930s, both on the ascent: Jean Harlow is both sexy here and naturalistic in a manner rare for an early-‘30s film. Also in the cast, uncredited, is 11-year-old Mickey Rooney as Huston’s son, already acting beyond his years.
Warner Archive’s Region-Free Blu-ray is a big improvement over their 2009 DVD. The black-and-white 1.37:1 standard image is reasonably sharp with good blacks and contrast. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono is also good, though the sound design is so busy with police calls, sirens, and gunfire I resorted to the optional English subtitles to catch some of the dialogue.
The supplements are disappointing, limited to two cartoons from the same year, SOP for the label these days when preexisting supplements don’t already exist. They are Goopy Geer, remastered in high-def; and Bosko and Bruno, which appears up-rezzed from standard-definition.
Not great but enjoyable, especially for Harlow and that startling if reactionary conclusion. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV