Southbank shootout... The Racket (1928) with Stephen Horne, BFI

“A good story, plus good direction… a great cast… minus dumb supervision, is responsible for another great underworld film.” Variety, 1928

Two old friends from the toughest part of town, once choses the line of the law and the other takes his chances outside of it. Neither understands the other: time to get out of your racket says Louis, the gangster, “I happen to like my racket” says McQuigg a captain in the police force.

The Racket was amongst the first of many and for that reason and many others it feels ahead of its time; you can almost hear Thomas Meighan’s Irish drawl and Louis Wolheim’s guttural threats. It’s a template that grew and grew but essentially remained the same from the early 30’s to the films of Scorsese and HBO serials such as Boardwalk Empire. Modern-day Westerns? That point of emerging capitalism at which organisation is first brought by opportunism before regulations level the field…

It’s a world of nostalgic curiosity for an ultra-violent underground we never experienced and a visceral take on defined moral choices we are sure we’d be on the right side of. Produced by Howard Hughes, The Racket is well directed by Lewis Milestone who makes the most of the cramped interiors and limited mobility to create an uncomfortable intimacy that bristles throughout. From the opening moments when a window opens onto a night-time street scene to the final shocking shots, the film is noir in the literal sense.

Louis Wolheim and Thomas Meighan

I’ve seen The Racket before but this was the first time on screen and with expert live accompaniment provided by one of the hottest guns in town, Stephen Horne who, whilst he didn’t bring any violent cases… sorry, violin cases, brought his gangster game and delivered some controlled violence of his own on the NFT1's unsuspecting piano. As ever, accompaniment brings out the most meaning in silent films and today Mr Horne brought a jazz-age swagger to a jaunty piano score that matched the toughness of the majority of the central characters, including a marvellously spunky Marie Prevost.

It was a bar-room brawl of a score and made total sense in light of the film’s mix of gallows humour with a more serious side. We even had the debut (possibly…) of Stephen whistling, this time along with a couple of daredevil reporters trying to get a story at a gangster funeral: there is something comic about gangsters but they’re deadly serious.

Accordingly, The Racket shows some quite surprising shades of grey and Marie Prevost’s character is not alone in wondering what it is the separates the good guys from the bad. Based on Bartlett Cormack’s 1927 play – which featured one Edward G. Robinson – The Racket does feel like a theatrical conversion being very much dialogue-driven and mostly based in the same convincingly-drab set of a police station on the edge of town and almost outside the law…

Marie Prevost

It features Thomas Meighan as police Captain James McQuigg who gives a most convincing Irish-American turn full of swagger and sneer as he faces up to Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) the Teflon crime boss from the same neighbourhood. The men are almost friends and perhaps once they were but now they’re involved in an escalating conflict that can only end one way.

Powerful as the men are they are pretty much upstaged by a dynamic performance from a blonde Marie Prevost whose nightclub singer Helen, is a girl with a heart of gold and an eye for the digging of same.  Tougher than the boys she drives the story on and balances her books in the devastating style – unscathed by compromise unlike the police, the press and the professional criminals…

Things kick off as Nick’s bootlegging distribution drifts into the territory of his rival Spike Corcoran (Henry Sedley) and there’s trouble… Nick attempts to warn off McQuigg but he turns up with his colleagues to spoil the show and arrest as many as possible. Nick invites McQuigg to a party at Weibergs for his little brother Joe… it’s not clear if he’s trying to work him or that there’s genuine respect. Either way things don’t turn out that well…

The delicate flower that is Louis Wolheim

First we see the newly curled blonde mop of Helen (Marie) as she works the nightclub room in her own way homing in on Nick’s rat-like brother before being pushed away by Nick who clearly has issues with women. But Helen’s made of stern stuff and comes back at him.

Then, events are interrupted by the arrival of Spike and his boys intent on some instant ledded-karma… they circle around with intent only to be outflanked by McQuigg’s men. It’s not enough though and in a short melee Spike buys the farm and no one saw who sold it. The gloves are off but as McQuigg targets Nick, the long arm of the outlaw reaches into the pockets of the senior officers and the earnest captain finds himself transferred out of harm’s way up in the furthest reaches of Precinct 28.

Out in these sticks, there's not much to do with Mr Scarsi’s business until his foolish brother drives up with Helen. After rebuffing his clumsy attempt at seduction, Helen leaves the car and Joe speeds off causing a pile up and the death of a young woman. He is taken into custody by the young Patrolman Johnson (G. Pat Collins) who saw it all.

No one's taking Helen for a ride... not even Nick Scarsi

The gentlemen of the press - Welch (Sam De Grasse) and Miller (Skeets Gallagher) are already gathered to get the gen on McQuigg’s relocation and sense there’s more to this story whilst a greenhorn, Ames (John Darrow) has a good heart but no sense. Helen arrives and immediately attracts Ames attention. She’s not letting on with regards to the identity of the hit and run driver and gets sent to the – rather packed – ladies quarters for the night. Sweetly Ames arrives with a nightdress and overnight bag.

Joe’s secret is soon out and the pressure from dodgy judiciary and Nick himself is soon applied. Nick tries to bribe Johnson only to have his money flung back. Having found an honest cop he simply shoots him in the back… is this film ever going to show that cheats don’t prosper?!

It’s a convoluted and very “wordy” denouement (see above on “stage origins”) yet which is well acted by the three main leads. Wolheim and Meighan are irresistible forces bouncing off each other and the corruption of their organisations. It takes Prevost’s Helen to puncture this masculine standoff and to show who it is who has the truest racket of all…

The dodgy DA tries to persuade Mac...

The Racket was only found in Hughes’ archive after his death and was restored by TCM in the noughties and presented with a forceful new score from Robert Israel which has plenty of good moments but does threaten to smother the action with intent: I enjoyed Stephen Horne’s music today far more… if ever a player could tip the end of their nose and wink at the audience then here he was, honky-tonk Horne, with nuanced gangster-wrapping for this sublte and surprising film.

The Racket was one of the first films to be nominate as Outstanding Picture in the 1929 Academy Awards – the winner being the mighty Wings - whilst Marie P surely deserved a Best Supporting Actress nomination for she steals every scene she’s in!

Great to see it “live” in BFT1 and, despite the weather, so well attended too! Here's lookin' at you...

Heart. Of. Gold.

St Patricia… Little Old New York (1923), with Morgan Cooke, The Barbican

As Jeanine Basinger has written, from a historical perspective, no one has it worse than Marion Davies; “…she was a big success in silent movies, and popular with audiences… but nobody believes it.” Whilst this is partly, as Basinger says, the curse of Citizen Kane, William Randolph Hearst was not Charles Foster Kane and nor was he the one doing the acting on screen. Right from the get-go Marion made films for Hearst and he was seen by contemporary reviewers as controlling her career.

Thankfully we get the chance to see for ourselves how good Marion Davies was not just in comedies such as The Patsy and the sublime Show People but increasingly in the kind of historical romantic dramas her wealthy lover liked to see her in and which were box office successes. When Knighthood was in Flower (1922), recently released on BluRay, was an enjoyable romp uplifted by the tonally-varied exuberance of Davies’ performance and was one of the biggest films of that year. Today we watched another smash which ended up the seventh highest grosser of the year.

Marion was big box office and the intimacy she still establishes with paying customers explains why.

Today’s screening featured a fine print from the Irish Film Institute and was supported by Culture Ireland as part of GB18: Promoting Irish Arts in Britain. The fact that it was screened the day after a St Patrick’s Day drubbing of the English rugby union side by the team in green was purely co-incidental.

The accompaniment was provided by Galway musician, Morgan Cooke who also introduced the film discussing the work of the prolific director Sidney Olcott, who was Hollywood’s go-to-fella for features of Irish origin. Marion herself was a first generation American with parents both from Eire but y’all know that surely just from the glint in her emerald eyes…

Little Old New York is a sub-Dickensian tale that has many a twist in just under two hours’ running time with a slightly clumsy plot taken from Rida Johnson Young’s play. For it to work, you have to be able to believe that people could accept Marion Davies as a young man… she might be wearing trousers and a bobbed haircut but, what can I say; “dude looks like a lady…” Probably she finishes last in a silent cross-dressing chart featuring Asta Nielsen (Hamlet), Ossi Oswalda (I Don’t Want to be a Man), Mary Pickford (various) and Louise Brooks (Beggars of Life), but you have to go with it.

Yep, totally a boy

Marion plays Patricia O'Day the sister of Patrick (Stephen Carr) who has inherited millions by way of his estranged Uncle’s dying wish to atone for cutting old man John O'Day (J. M. Kerrigan) out of the business they both started in America. John has returned to Ireland whilst his brother has prospered and has nursed a sizeable grudge over this time as he has struggled to look after his own. At the reading of the will, step-son Larry Delevan (Harrison Ford – no, not that one (again)) obviously has high hopes but he can only inherit of Patrick fails to turn up to claim his prize within a year.

That year is just about up and Larry is celebrating with his pals but there’s a knock on the door and in walks John O’Day and his son Patrick who has turned remarkably feminine since we last saw him. We learn later that Paddy had died on the crossing and John, desperate to get his just deserts, persuades Pat to drag up.

Pretty soon Pat is making large eyes as Larry (what could Lubitsch have made of this?!) who just thinks the lad is a bit soft: “Patrick, what did you do in Ireland?!”  asks one character later but the Americans remain fooled.

There’s a sub-plot involving Larry’s investment in a mad invention – a steam-powered paddle steamer invented by Robert Fulton (Courtenay Foote) who did indeed exist and do this thing. Various know-it-alls think it’s crazy but it’s Larry’s shot at making it given that Pat has inherited his inheritance.

Not That One and Such a Fine Comedienne

It all bobs along nicely and really takes off when Larry bets his house (literally) on an unlikely victory for his pal Bully Boy Brewster (Harry Watson) in a boxing match against the ferocious Hoboken Terror (Louis Wolheim).

There’s a good balance of comedy and drama and it has an amiability due in no small part to the star presence of Marion Davies. She’s an extraordinary pretty boy and once she’s back in feminine clothes there are numerous close ups of her tear-stained face that guarantee an emotionally immersed ending.

Morgan took the bold step of asking a mostly English audience to participate by singing along to the song Marion Davies plays on her harp “Do you hear me callin' when the dews are fallin'...” – the rehearsals went well but we were a little quiet when the moment came! Never-the-less, it’s not often you get to join in. In addition to the harp, Morgan played piano and melodica lingering on the many magnificent close-ups of Marion and pummelling the keys during that boxing match.

For those of us who missed the Quiet Man for St Patricks, this was a good old scrap that descends into a free-for-all… before love saves the day.

For me it was another important part of Davies’ career slotting into place. The film was placed fifth in the – non-Hearst - New York Times top ten and Marion was voted fifth in Quigley’s Box Office Stars list; she came second the following year. None of which fits in with the narrative of her only finding her feet with comedy – she was funny all along and even in these historical dramas there was gurning, fighting and dancing. Whether William Randolph approved or not is another matter…

Assault on Precinct 28… The Racket (1928)

This film shows some quite surprising shades of grey and Marie Prevost’s character is not alone in wondering what it is the separates the good guys from the bad. Based on Bartlett Cormack’s 1927 play – which featured a star turn from one Edward G. Robinson – The Racket does feel like a theatrical conversion being very much dialogue-driven and mostly based in the same convincingly-drab set of a police station on the edge of town and almost outside the law…

It features a super turn from Thomas Meighan as police Captain James McQuigg who gives a most convincing Irish-American turn full of swagger and sneer as he faces up to Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) the Teflon crime boss from the same neighbourhood. The men are almost friends and perhaps once they were but now they’re involved in an escalating conflict that can only end one way.

Marie Prevost

Powerful as the men are they are pretty much upstaged by a dynamic performance from a blonde Marie Prevost whose nightclub singer Helen, is a girl with a heart of gold and an eye for the digging of same.  Tougher than the boys she drives the story on and balances her books in the devastating style – unscathed by compromise unlike the police, the press and the professional criminals…

The story is another you might expect from the early talkies and the gangster boom that followed and shows almost every character to be on the make – involved in some kind of racket. Nick tells his “pal” to give up his racket and, presumably take up his own but McQuigg responds by saying he likes his racket: the business of honest policing.

Spike and the boys

Things kick off as Nick’s bootlegging distribution drifts into the territory of his rival Spike Corcoran (Henry Sedley) and there’s trouble… Nick attempts to warn off McQuigg but he turns up with his colleagues to spoil the show and arrest as many as possible.

Nick invites McQuigg to a party at Weibergs for his little brother Joe… it’s not clear if he’s trying to work him or that there’s genuine respect. Either way things don’t turn out that well…

Louis Wolheim

First we see the newly curled blonde mop of Marie as she works the nightclub room in her own way homing in on Nick’s rat-like brother before being pushed away by Nick who clearly has issues with women. But Helen’s made of stern stuff and comes back at him.

Events are interrupted by the arrival of Spike and his boys intent on instant karma… they circle around with intent only to be outflanked by McQuigg’s men. It’s not enough though and in a short melee Spike buys the farm and no one saw who sold it. The gloves are off but as McQuigg targets Nick, the long arm of the outlaw reaches into the pockets of the senior officers and the earnest captain finds himself transferred out of harm’s way up in the furthest reaches of Precinct 28.

Helen's not getting taken for a ride

Not much to do with Mr Scarsi’s business up in those parts until his foolish brother arrives with Helen. After rebuffing his clumsy attempt at seduction, Helen leaves the car and Joe speeds off causing a pile up and the death of a young woman. He is taken into custody by the young Patrolman Johnson (G. Pat Collins) who saw it all.

The gentlemen of the press - Welch (Sam De Grasse) and Miller (Skeets Gallagher) are already gathered to get the gen on McQuigg’s relocation and sense there’s more to this story whilst a greenhorn, Ames (John Darrow) has a good heart but no sense.

John Darrow and Marie Prevost

Helen arrives and immediately attracts Ames attention. She’s not letting on with regards to the identity of the hit and run driver and gets sent to the – rather packed – ladies quarters for the night. Sweetly Ames arrives with a nightdress and overnight bag.

Joe’s secret is soon out and the pressure from dodgy judiciary and Nick himself is soon applied. Nick tries to bribe Johnson only to have his money flung back. Having found an honest cop he simply shoots him in the back… is this film ever going to show that cheats don’t prosper?!

McQuigg stands firm

It’s a convoluted and very “wordy” denouement (see above on “stage origins”…) yet which is well acted by the three main leads. Wolheim and Meighan are irresistible forces bouncing off each other and the corruption of their organisations.

It takes Prevost’s Helen to puncture this masculine standoff and to show who it is who has the truest racket of all…

Produced by Howard Hughes, The Racket is well directed by Lewis Milestone who makes the most of the cramped interiors and limited mobility to create an uncomfortable intimacy that bristles throughout. From the opening moments when a window opens onto a night-time street scene to the final shocking shots, the film is noir in the literal sense.

The Racket was only found in Hughes’ archive after his death and was restored by TCM in the noughties and presented with a determined new score from Robert Israel which has plenty of good moments but does occasionally threaten to smother the action with intent.

Mean streets

The film is available to stream on TCM. It was one of the first films to be nominate as Outstanding Picture in the 1929 Academy Awards – the winner being the truly mighty Wings - whilst Marie P surely deserved a Best Supporting Actress nomination for she steals every scene she’s  in!