What to expect
Howard Hawks turns criminal ambition into hard, fast visual storytelling, using repeated cross-shaped marks and aggressive movement to bind violence to ascent. The film also exposes the censorship struggle surrounding early gangster cinema.
How to ease in
The pace is direct, but remember that different historical versions circulated. This page’s 95 minutes belongs only to the named BFI presentation; follow the recurring visual marks rather than treating the runtime as universal.
Heads-up
A gangster climbs through a city with such speed that every victory already looks like a warning.
At first I found something exhilarating in Tony's momentum. But once I realised that crossing each boundary did not make him freer, only less able to stop, the speed became frightening.
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At first I found something exhilarating in Tony's momentum. But once I realised that crossing each boundary did not make him freer, only less able to stop, the speed became frightening. He appears to be rising while moving towards ruin from the start, and I was left uneasy that the film had carried me along with him.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Paul Muni · Ann Dvorak · George Raft · Boris Karloff
- Production
- Howard Hawks · Howard Hughes
Version map
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