The Music Box Kid
The Music Box Kid
| 01 June 1960 (USA)
The Music Box Kid Trailers

A young gangster in 1920's New York quickly rises through the ranks of the mob, then sets up his own murder-for-hire organization. When he starts kidnapping other mobsters for ransom, the New York gangs band together for revenge.

Reviews
Cubussoli

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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Odelecol

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

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Nicole

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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Zlatica

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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JohnHowardReid

Produced on a very low budget, this movie does contain two or three scenes that are mildly effective. But both script and direction are static. The script is weighted far too heavily with dialogue, and it comes across like a cheap television play. Worse still, Luana Patten and Dayton Lummis ineptly contribute a lot of nauseating sentiment. And the characters are always exclaiming what a luxurious apartment the hero lives in -- but, boy or boy, is it a drab dump! Further economies are made by using lots of stock shots of the New York skyline while the narrator DESCRIBES most of the action! In all, this a movie that can be safely ignored -- even by the actors' most rabid fans!

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Movie Critic

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Were not Robert Foster so handsome and myself so compulsive I would have pulled the plug early on.The action and plot unbelievable the script terrible with an idiotic happy moralistic ending of sorts. But saying that much gives it too much credit..this movie comes as close to having zero content as anything I have ever watched. There is nothing to dislike as there is no content to the thing.An ambitious young gangster Robert Foster breaks off from his gang early in his career to form his own killing enterprise. His weapon of choice= a machine gun in a music box (title). His wife eventually rats on him under pressure from a priest when he decides to take down a special state prosecutor.But I can't stress how absolutely cardboard like without any suspense this thing is...how flat the dialog and unimaginative the story. It is almost like a handful of untalented actors were told to invent it ad lib as the cameras rolled.Usually I will dislike a movie for something it does...this one I disliked because it does nothing it has zero content in terms of story and acting. It truly is an empty suit. Also unsurprising it is not a B movie but a Z- movie in terms of budget and props as well. It could have been written in an hour and filmed in an afternoon.One funny thing...this is a costume movie of the 20s made in 1960..however even this is done on the cheap most of the extra women look straight out of 1960 dresses and make up wise with a small unconvincing twists.DO NOT RECOMMEND

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bkoganbing

Because of the popularity of TV's The Untouchables, the late fifties early sixties saw a revival of the gangster film genre. Not the stuff that Warner Brothers put out with its stable of gangster stars, but allegedly true life stories of real life gangsters. Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein all get biographical films of a sort around this time. Even movie gangster George Raft who hung around a lot with the real deal got one.One of the poorer ones has to be The Music Box Kid where the names were allegedly changed. Of course anyone who's familiar in the slightest with gangland lore recognizes protagonist Ron Foster as Dutch Schultz, boss of the Bronx in the Twenties and Thirties.Ron's married to Luana Patten who at the beginning of the film actually thinks her hubby is a most successful insurance salesman who pays for everything in cash because he doesn't believe in credit. Poor Luana spends most of the film dealing with her priest, Dayton Lummis, who's no doubt telling her to stand by her man even though he is a killer. Otherwise she'd be running from this guy. Stories of Dutch Schultz's temper tantrums are legendary. But even he wasn't as crazy as this guy who was busy extorting fellow mobsters and starting Murder, Inc. which Schultz did not do. When Carleton Young is appointed Special Prosecutor and Foster decides he ought to be hit, the other mobsters see their duty clear. But that's not the end, although in real life it was the end when Lucky Luciano and company thought too much heat would be brought down if Schultz ever assassinated Thomas E. Dewey. Luana in fact gets the last word and the last word is quite unbelievable.The title refers to the carrying case where Foster packs his Thompson submachine gun, favored weapon of gangland back in the day. I'm sure many people got fooled with that title and asked for their money back.

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GUENOT PHILIPPE

Once is not usual, this little Eddie L Cahn flick is rather effective, but very cheap, not a surprise...The tale of a petty hoodlum in the 20's New York, prohibition era and gang wars. The rise and fall of this ambitious, ruthless and greedy happy trigger fellow. We already have seen this a thousand times, especially during the early 60's, with features such as Pretty Boy Floyd, Purple Gang, Pay or Die, Murder Inc, Portrait of a Mobster, Mad Dog Coll and so on...So, the "mighty" Edward L Cahn wanted to contribute to this kind of movies, very in fashion.Of course, the appearance of a priest in the film, and the theme of the redemption with religious ethics reminds Warner gangster movies of the 30's and early 40's...One scene of this little feature is taken from William Wellman's "Public Enemy". And it's not the grapefruit one !!!I did not expect so much from an Edward L Cahn movie. Even produced by the usual Robert Kent.

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