A Slight Case of Murder (1938) Edward G. Robinson

A Slight Case of Murder is a 1938 comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon. The film is based on a play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay. The offbeat comedy stars Edward G. Robinson spoofing his own gangster image as Remy Marco.

Synopsis

Former bootlegger Remy Marko decides to make his beer business legitimate after Prohibition ends. Having sent his daughter Mary away to an expensive European school, he now wants his family to mix with the best society. Unfortunately for Remy, the beer he brews is awful and does not sell, and the bank calls in his loan. Remy asks the bankers to meet him at his summer home in Saratoga, hoping he will be able to convince them to extend his loan. On their way to the country, Remy, his wife Nora and Mary, who is home from school, stop at the orphanage where Remy grew up. Remy wants to give the most troublesome orphan a chance for some fresh air, and Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom is that orphan. When Remy's family and reformed gang members arrive at Saratoga, they find four bodies in the house. Remy recognizes the corpses as former enemies and decides to drop the bodies on the doorsteps of people he and his companions dislike. Meanwhile, Remy is extremely upset to learn that Dick Whitewood, Mary's fiancé, has become a state trooper. When the ex-gangsters discover that there is a reward for the dead men, who are wanted for robbing a group of bookies, they retrieve the bodies before they are discovered. A fifth thief, who is hiding in the house, tries to retrieve the stolen money from its hiding place in Douglas' room. During a party that evening, Remy discovers the stolen money and uses it to forestall the bankers before returning it to the bookies. He learns the truth about the taste of his beer and makes plans to improve it. Later Dick accidentally shoots the fifth thief, impressing the police and his future father-in-law.

Cast & Crew
Lloyd Bacon Director
Edward G. Robinson as Remy Marko
Jane Bryan as Mary Marko
Allen Jenkins as Mike
Ruth Donnelly as Nora Marko
Willard Parker as Dick Whitewood
John Litel as Post
Edward Brophy as Lefty
Harold Huber as Guissepe
Eric Stanley as Ritter
Paul Harvey as Al Whitewood
Bobby Jordan as Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom

Release Date 5 Mar 1938
Production Dates mid-Oct--late Nov 1937
Duration (in mins) 85

Original NY Times Movie Review February 28, 1938
A Slight Case of Murder (1938)
NYT Critics' Pick This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.

A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER
By Frank S. Nugent
Published: February 28, 1938

The Strand is enjoying A Slight Case of Murder, and we haven't laughed so much since Remy Marco's Mike found four parties shot to death in the back bedroom of the Saratoga house his boss had rented for the season.

The four parties, still clutching their poker hands, were No-Nose Cohen, Blackhead Gallagher, a stranger, and Little Dutch. Little Dutch was holding a king-high flush, which prompted Marco to growl, "Yeah, he always had the luck." Mrs. Marco was more indignant. With an outraged tenant's voice, she said the owners shouldn't have gone off leaving a room cluttered up that way. And Mike, Lefty, and Giuseppe thought it was inconsiderate of the four parties to get themselves bumped off in Remy's house just when the boss was going respectable.

That's the Damon Runyon approach to murder and if you can't look beyond a grisly joke and see only the joke, then the Strand's not your theater this week. But we hope it will be, for A Slight Case of Murder is just about the funniest show the new year has produced. Nothing subtle about it, of course. It goes after its laughs with Rabelaisian gusto, a dialogic scorn of the grammatical properties, and an impolite subscription to the dictum: de mortuis nil nisi mayhem. What happens to the four parties who got themselves so annoyingly rubbed out in the reformed beer baron's shack is plenty, but we can't go into it now.

After all, they constituted only a slight case of murder, and Remy Marco had more important things to worry about. He had a $500,000 note to pay before noon; he had a beer-drinking brat from his old alma mater, the orphanage, on his hands; and, worst of all, there was his daughter about to disgrace the Marco name by bringing a dilettante state trooper into the family. No wonder Mrs. Marco with wifely solicitude patted his brow and tenderly said, "Gee, Remy, you're sweatin' like a stuck hog."

We understand the Runyon-Howard Lindsay play was only moderately amusing; that the picture is immoderately so must be due, then, to Earl Baldwin's and Joseph Schrank's clever rewrite job, to Lloyd Bacon's impudently agile direction, and to the flavorsome performances of an unusually apt and well-chosen cast.

For a Runyonesque panel the casting director had the marvelous good fortune to find Edward G. Robinson and Ruth Donnelly to play Mr. and Mrs.; Bobby Jordan to be the problem child; Douglas Fairbanks, Rosenbloom; Allen Jenkins, Harold Huber, Eddie Brophy, and Joe Downing as assorted gunmen; Bert Hanlon to be the priceless bookie called Sad Sam. There are others, almost equally right. If you're not too squeamish, you should have a round of chuckles on the house.


INDEPENDENT REVIEW

A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

During his days as a journalist in New York Damon Runyon crafted the myth of Broadway. He spent his days writing articles about the people that populated New York City's night life. He was known for juxtaposing the respectable law-abiding citizen with the mugs, hoodlums, and dolls that trafficked Times Square. When the English language did not have the appropriate word or phrase to capture the feeling of the streets Runyon didn't think twice about inventing them from everyday words. In Runyon's world a roscoe is a gun, a shiv is a knife, and if you were smart you knew to keep your snoot out of a mug's business when he was packing either of them.
As Runyon became more and more popular he started to turn his attention away from documenting the real-life travails of New York's gamblers, gangsters, and ever-loving louts and put his energy towards creating original work based on characters he knew quite well.
A Slight Case of Murder started out as a play but with the help of Lloyd Bacon, the director, Edward G. Robinson, the star, and a cast packed with the decade's best character actors a gangster comedy classic was created.
Edward G. Robinson plays good guy bootlegger Remy Marco; a character who takes several cues from previous tough guy protagonists that Robinson has played. With the repeal of Prohibition Marco decides to go legit and start a brewery so that he can provide the entire country with beer legally. Marco's desire for respectability almost does him in several times during the story though. As in most gangster stories the stench of the streets is a stink that doesn't easily go away.
The comedy within the movie is rooted in the audience being well aware of the conventions of the gangster story. It is to the entire casts credit that every actor in the story doesn't overdo the comedic elements of the characters they are portraying, because with just one wrong note the entire movie could have collapsed into a dramatic mess. The level of violence in the movie is ramped up due to the fact that the story is about gangsters, but one never feels the anxiety of the violence being enacted on the screen. You don't believe that the victims of violence within the movie are really human. Not to say that the characters are mere caricature's, but that unlike dramatic gangster movies that had to cater to the whims of the Hays Code, making sure to never show a gangster enjoying or getting away with breaking the law, the comedic gangster movie could get away with most things as long as it was for a laugh.
With this movie an audience can root for the gangster and not feel guilty for siding with the bad guys. The gangsters in the story are neither good or bad; in fact as you watch the movie it is quite easy to even forget that these characters are gangsters. By treating the characters as people first and gangsters second the movie creates a believable reality that still gets plenty of laughs.

Another Damon Runyon Comedy staring Humphrey Bogart - http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6105178/All_Through_The_Night