The Beast of the City

Directed by Charles Brabin (1932) ***

In the early ’30s, Warner Bros. ruled the screens with its hard-hitting crime dramas like Little Caesar, Smart Money and The Public Enemy, all from 1931. The more family friendly and genteel MGM attempted to compete with its The Secret Six (1931), with Wallace Beery as Louis “Slaughterhouse” Scorpio. Although financially successful, it didn’t hit the mark. 1932’s pre-code The Beast of the City hit closer. Though not as radical as the competition (both Scarface, United Artists, 1932, and Little Caesar featured the criminals as protagonists), The Beast of the City has an ending every bit as violent and depressing, and a plotline just as involving. (A connection between MGM’s and Warner Bros. films is noteworthy: Beast was co-written by pulp writer W.R. Burnett, who co-wrote Scarface and wrote the novel Little Caesar was based on).

The idea for filming The Beast of the City supposedly came from talks between MGM head honcho Louis B. Mayer and President Herbert Hoover, who was concerned criminals were looking more glamorous on film than the policemen trying to arrest them. Beast begins with a preface calling for “glorification” of the police, signed by Hoover. The film then plunges into the chaotic world of a crowded police station, with dispatchers answering sometimes humorous phone calls:

“But lady — if you kept your shades down you wouldn’t be bothered. Put yourself in his position.”

“What was he wearing, lady? A tailored hat, brown eyes … white socks.”

The mise-en-scène eventually expands to encompass the police department halls, the bored career patrolmen at night, the meandering police cars, the mundane, the investigation of deaths, annoying reporters … These scenes strive for a freewheeling “realism” which not only draws the viewer into the world of policing but also displays a new mastery of sound and editing techniques which movies only one year earlier couldn’t have displayed.

The film eventually zeroes in on family man Police Captain Jim Fitzpatrick (Walter Huston) attempting, but continually failing, to convict the Capone-like top criminal Belmonte, played by Jean Hersholt. The more Huston fails, the more determined he is to accomplish this. Beast reminds the viewer that Huston was one of the finest actors of his generation, or any generation. Here he has a steely resolve, even when things look bleak, but the range of his acting abilities and the roles he could play were astonishing, from Abraham Lincoln (1930) to an ornery Satan (The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941) to a crusty old miner in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). His acting genes were evidently successfully passed on to his son, John Huston (Chinatown, 1974), his granddaughter, Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001), and great-grandson Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire).

In addition to the crooked cops, crooked politicians, crooked lawyers and the all-around rigged system which prevents Captain Fitzpatrick from nailing Belmonte, he has another Achilles Heel, though he doesn’t know it: his co-worker brother Ed, played by Wallace Ford. Infatuated by Belmonte’s mistress, Daisy (Jean Harlow), he soon begins a not very smart affair with her, especially after a private, slinky dance she performs for him in her bedroom. Borrowed by MGM from Howard Hughes, Harlow was just on the precipice of the heights of fame. Here she has a raw and vibrant sensuality which makes the 1932 stuffiness around her seem even stuffier. Ed soon starts leaking police secrets, which Daisy relays back to Belmonte. The higher Fitzpatrick climbs in his quest to carry out justice, the more deeply entrenched his brother becomes in Belmonte’s world.

Fitzgerald finally has no choice but to take himself, his brother and the force on a possible suicide mission, culminating in a scene of such astonishing and bleak bloodshed that MGM decided to not promote The Beast of the City and instead bury it in their theater release schedule.

The Beast of the City has a timeless plot (one can imagine Scorsese filming it today with Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet as the brothers and Pedro Pascal as the heavy). For a film nearly 100 years old, it holds up well and is perhaps one of the most unjustly forgotten crime films. (Mickey Rooney, in only his second feature film, is uncredited as Fitzpatrick’s son). In the end, it’s Beast‘s plot and attention to detail that propels the movie and makes for above-average entertainment.

The Beast of the City is available as a Warner Bros. Archive burn-on-demand DVD.

—Michael R. Neno, 2025 March 28