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Others will be willing to take James Cagney's word for it. Asked during a lull in shooting the picture what was going to happen next, Cinemactor Cagney eyed his questioner, demanded incredulously: "Are you really that interested?"
The Earl of Chicago (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). For years Robert Montgomery made out very handsomely as a Hollywood type. To cinemaddicts he was a slickly turned-out young man of the world whose scintillant wisecracks regularly wowed Joan Crawford. But all the while Robert Montgomery wanted to be a gangster. Much against its better judgment his studio at last let him play a sneering homicidal bellhop in Night Must Fall. Cinemactor Montgomery had a high old time murdering Dame May Whitty, and critics thought it was pretty good too. But the U. S. cinemasses, who can spot a phony on the screen as quickly as on the street, stayed away from the box office. They thought Robert Montgomery was not the type.
In The Earl of Chicago, persevering Robert Montgomery is at some pains to show them they were wrong. As Silky, a sly, post-Prohibition Chicago gangster, who inherits an ancient and honorable British earldom, young Mr. Montgomery proves that his criminal instincts are sound. His triumph is all the more thumping because, as a movie, The Earl of Chicago never quite knows where it is going. Starting as a comedy in Chicago, it turns into stark drama under the impact of British manners and manors. Silky, once a carefree, moronic young mobster, snapping rubber bands at a pair of shapely legs (their tantalizing owner never steps into the picture), goes to his death (by hanging) in the regalia and with the dignity of a peer of the realm.
Part of the credit for making this somersault admirably smooth instead of ridiculous belongs to Producer Victor Saville (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) and Director Richard Thorpe (Night Must Fall). Part belongs to British Actor Edmund Gwenn for a first-rate performance as the butler who is submissive, not subservient. But most of the entertainment in The Earl of Chicago, and that is plenty, is provided by Robert Montgomery's transformation of his playboy grin into a fixed moronic stare, his playboy titter into a loony hee-hee, his playboy aplomb into gangster arrogance.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Gene Lockhart; TIME, Feb. 5).
Of Mice and Men (Lon Chaney Jr., Burgess Meredith, Betty Field; TIME, Jan. 15).
Gone With the Wind (Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel, Leslie Howard; TIME, Dec. 25).
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas; TIME, Nov. 6).