Watching this movie for the first time, you may get the feeling that you've seen it all before. The reason for this is that you have. All the iconography of the gangster film is presented here for the first time. It would appear in later films of the genre, even unto "The Godfather" and beyond. That's more than sixty years of being hit over the head with the immigrant who rises out of the gutter before toppling like a ship's mast destepped. The fierce bark of pistols. The insults and contempt of the honest policeman. The squad cars roaring out of the underground garage of the police station. The first tuxedo. The solemnity of the flower-bedecked funeral. The assassination attempt and the revenge. The quarrels over "territory." The disruptive blond. The banquet honoring the protagonist's apotheosis. The sirens growing in the background at the crime scene. The traitorous snitch. The stuttering chopper. And the dialog! So filled with single entendres. "Ya can dish it out but ya got so's ya can't take it no more." "Some day you and I are gonna take a little walk, Rico." "Whatsamatter with you? Ya yellow?" "Nice to see all you gents with your molls." "My gun's gonna speak it's piece." "Screw, mug." And the immortal, "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" I won't bother to describe it in any detail. If you're familiar with "Little Caesar" you already know the story, and if you haven't -- you still know the story.
However, I'd like to direct your attention to a scene that always has me in stitches. It's after Rico has lost his lofty position. He winds up in a flophouse, boozing out of the bottle. In the foreground are a couple of bums reading aloud from a newspaper about Rico's rise and fall. Edward G. Robinson, as Rico, is lying on his bed listening intently. He's disheveled, filthy, drunk, and greasy with sweat. When the bums read about his rise to power he snarls and bares his teeth in a smile, nodding savagely. When the bums read about Rico's being yellow and taking a powder, Robinson goes absolutely ape with rage, growling and spitting, carrying on like some animal in a zoo no more than a few feet from the bums -- and they pay him no attention whatever.
This was one of three gangster films that came out at about the same time and established the conventions of the genre. The others were "Scarface" and "Public Enemy." All three carried the same armature -- the immigrant kid rising to power and being shot down. But, curiously, two of them had paraphilic undertones. "Scarface" had a healthy dose of incest. And "Little Caesar" came about as close to an on-screen portrayal of homosexual jealousy as you could get in 1931. Robinson is, after all, unable to coax its gun into speaking its piece when he tries to kill his buddy, nor does Robinson seem to stimulate the glands of Molls. (There's an execrable anatomical pun in there somewhere.)
That Edward G. Robinson went on to a long and fairly distinguished career in the movies is something of a surprise. His acting here is so stylized and his appearance so unprepossessing that it would have been perfectly understandable if he'd given this one outstanding performance and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Instead, he played leads and character parts for the next forty or fifty years, almost always giving good performances, sometime fine performances.
I don't know if this observation belongs here or on the message boards, but we notice several times that Caesar's ambitions are perfectly normal as far as his goals are concerned: power, respect, and money. ("Ahh, money's okay but it ain't everything.") Caesar's problem is with the means he chooses to achieve these goals. They happen to be illegal, whereas Joe's, for instance, are not.
The sociologist Robert Merton suggested that you could (1) accept both the means and the goals of society, which makes you a conformist; (2) you could accept the goals but reject the means like Caesar, which makes you an innovator; (3) you could accept the means but reject the goals, which makes you what Merton called a "ritualist," the kind of mousy bureaucrat who keeps his head down and plays CYA. There is a fourth cell in the typology. (4) You could reject both society's goals and the means to achieve them. In that case, you're a lunatic or a revolutionary. I wanted to add this because it's an interesting and unusual way of looking at the difference between Caesar and Joe. Thank you for your indulgence.
However, I'd like to direct your attention to a scene that always has me in stitches. It's after Rico has lost his lofty position. He winds up in a flophouse, boozing out of the bottle. In the foreground are a couple of bums reading aloud from a newspaper about Rico's rise and fall. Edward G. Robinson, as Rico, is lying on his bed listening intently. He's disheveled, filthy, drunk, and greasy with sweat. When the bums read about his rise to power he snarls and bares his teeth in a smile, nodding savagely. When the bums read about Rico's being yellow and taking a powder, Robinson goes absolutely ape with rage, growling and spitting, carrying on like some animal in a zoo no more than a few feet from the bums -- and they pay him no attention whatever.
This was one of three gangster films that came out at about the same time and established the conventions of the genre. The others were "Scarface" and "Public Enemy." All three carried the same armature -- the immigrant kid rising to power and being shot down. But, curiously, two of them had paraphilic undertones. "Scarface" had a healthy dose of incest. And "Little Caesar" came about as close to an on-screen portrayal of homosexual jealousy as you could get in 1931. Robinson is, after all, unable to coax its gun into speaking its piece when he tries to kill his buddy, nor does Robinson seem to stimulate the glands of Molls. (There's an execrable anatomical pun in there somewhere.)
That Edward G. Robinson went on to a long and fairly distinguished career in the movies is something of a surprise. His acting here is so stylized and his appearance so unprepossessing that it would have been perfectly understandable if he'd given this one outstanding performance and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Instead, he played leads and character parts for the next forty or fifty years, almost always giving good performances, sometime fine performances.
I don't know if this observation belongs here or on the message boards, but we notice several times that Caesar's ambitions are perfectly normal as far as his goals are concerned: power, respect, and money. ("Ahh, money's okay but it ain't everything.") Caesar's problem is with the means he chooses to achieve these goals. They happen to be illegal, whereas Joe's, for instance, are not.
The sociologist Robert Merton suggested that you could (1) accept both the means and the goals of society, which makes you a conformist; (2) you could accept the goals but reject the means like Caesar, which makes you an innovator; (3) you could accept the means but reject the goals, which makes you what Merton called a "ritualist," the kind of mousy bureaucrat who keeps his head down and plays CYA. There is a fourth cell in the typology. (4) You could reject both society's goals and the means to achieve them. In that case, you're a lunatic or a revolutionary. I wanted to add this because it's an interesting and unusual way of looking at the difference between Caesar and Joe. Thank you for your indulgence.