For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Mahlon Keane, the racketeer of the title, is in control of New York; if a serious crime takes place he knows about it; whether it is a bank robbery or the theft of the police commissioner's car. He enjoys winding up the police; in the opening scene we see him give a drunken violinist fifty dollars and put him in a cab so a cop can't arrest him for vagrancy. The violinist is a friend of attractive divorcée Rhoda Philbrooke; she is determined to get him off the booze and back on the stage but lacks the money she needs. She takes the fifty bucks to a charity evening and proceeds to a poker table where Keane is acting as dealer. Things start well but then it looks like she is going to lose; until she is able to switch a card while the other players are distracted. Keane sees her cheat but covers for her. Later he visits her and helps with her friend. As time passes they grow closer but Keane's business could ruin their relationship.Being over eighty years old it isn't surprising that the film looks dated… literally. No doubt it was nice and crisp when first shown but by the time it was put on DVD the print was inevitably rather scratched and otherwise degraded. At sixty six minutes it is fairly short but it doesn't feel too rushed. Robert Armstrong does a good job as Keane; a believable villain who can be threatening one minute and charming the next. Carole Lombard is equally good as Rhoda; attractive and likable but also a flawed character. The ending won't come as much of a surprise as no criminal could be seen to get a happy ending in those days. The action seems very tame by today's standards and some of the talking seems a little stagey; still I found this an enjoyable way to pass an hour.

Here's one to disappoint all Carole Lombard's fans and one that will not make a great impression on Robert Armstrong's either. On the other hand, Paul Hurst's legion of admirers will be in seventh heaven. Hurst not only has a meaty role for once (even if it was all shot in one day) but plays it brilliantly. Also to the fore is Hurst's victim, Al Hill, in his best role ever. Kit Guard as Gus also enjoys the best moments of his career. On the other hand, Roland Drew, as the third point in the Armstrong-Lombard love triangle, is a dud. Fortunately, this suits the role to some extent, though one is left wondering what a spoiled, sexy socialite finds in the dope ("dope" in both senses of that word). Like many "B" movie directors, Howard "Sal of Singapore" Higgin sails neatly through the movie, seemingly unaware of the many sound recording problems that worried "A" directors like Victor Fleming, King Vidor and John Ford. Available on a very good Grapevine DVD.

A beautiful, down and out former social débutante named Rhoda Philbrooke (Carol Lombard), who fell out of favor when she left her wealthy husband for a musician, is helped by a racketeer/mob boss named Mahlon Keane (Robert Armstrong), a man who seems to find his only real happiness in helping others with his ill gotten gain. Rhoda needs help to cure her musician Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew)'s alcohol addiction.Not surprisingly the story soon turns into something of a romantic triangle cliché as Keane falls in love with Rhoda too. As early talkies go, this movie is better done than most. It moves pretty briskly and is an interesting curio in that it shows so much sympathy to the plight of a divorced débutante and an unhappy, unsatisfied gangster boss. Overall though, it's never credible enough to be fully satisfying but still its story makes for some good melodrama.

Well mounted, interesting story about suave racketeer Armstrong falling for impoverished deb Lombard, hampered a bit by the declamatory style of speaking any speech longer than three words and apparent immobility of microphones.