Little Caesar

Overview

Commonly regarded as the first gangster film, Little Caesar stars Edward G. Robinson as the title character (real name Caesar Enrico Bandello), a vicious thief based on Al Capone who works his way up through the ranks to become the head of the mob, only to fall just as quickly.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/12/2014
UPC:	0888574106577
Original Release:	1930
Rating:	NR
Source:	WARNER ARCHIVES
Language:	English
Time:	1:18:00
Sales rank:	23,256

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Edward G. Robinson	Rico Bandello
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	Joe
Glenda Farrell	Olga
Thomas Jackson	Flaherty,Sgt. Flaherty
Ralph Ince	Diamond Pete Montana
George E. Stone	Otero
William Collier Jr.	Tony Passa
Stanley Fields	Sam Vettori
Armand Kaliz	DeVoss
Landers Stevens	Commissioner McClure
Maurice Black	Little Arnie Lorch
Noel Madison	Peppi
Nicholas Bela	Ritz Colonna
Lucille La Verne	Ma Magdalena
Ben Hendricks Jr.	Kid Bean
George Daly	Machine Gunner
Ernie Adams	Cashier,Cashier
Larry Steers	Cafe Guest
Louis Natheaux	Hood
Kernan Cripps	Detective
Sidney Blackmer	The Big Boy
Ferike Boros	Actor
Douglas Fairbanks	Actor
Erno Rapee	Composer

Technical Credits

Francis Faragoh

Robert E. Lee

Robert Lord

W.R. Burnett

Mervyn LeRoy	Director
Francis Faragoh	Screenwriter,Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Robert E. Lee	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Hal B. Wallis	Executive Producer,Producer
Darryl F. Zanuck	Producer
Robert Lord	Screenwriter
W.R. Burnett	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The rise of Al Capone to the head of America's criminal class inspired this Edward G. Robinson vehicle. Appearing just as talking pictures were finding their feet, Robinson's gravelly snarl and sociopathic disdain for human conventions became the template for countless future gangster anti-heroes. In fact, virtually every aspect of Little Caesar, from the seedy settings and rough-hewn slang to the pinstriped suits and ever-present Tommy Gun, became part of the language of the genre. Little Caesar sprints by in a brisk 77 minutes, powering through the rapid rise and inevitable descent of its flawed and ambitious protagonist as if a getaway car were waiting outside. The film insightfully plays on the Horatio Alger ideal of the all-American self-made man to examine this impulse's darker, anti-social implications, while offering a tragic arc of Greek proportions. The story's violence is discernibly in your face, and the performances are about as subtle as the gangster's suits. Ironically, the film, which purportedly aimed to expose the dark underbelly of the gangster life, was so riveting that it wound up glamorizing its targets, a fact not lost on movie censors of the time. Little Caesar was followed quickly by Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932); the three films ushered in a legion of imitators to follow, but they were also, at least for a time, the last "true" gangster movies, as their ambiguous representation of glamorous criminals brought down the much stricter 1934 content restrictions of Joe Breen's Production Code Administration.