mark.waltz Review of Docks of San Francisco

Docks of San Francisco (1932)

Decent start, great ending, all over the place like Lombard Street in the middle.

[4/10 · 15 April 2020]

Mary Nolan truly gives a wonderful tough performance in this pre-code crime drama about a gangster's moll, trying to reform herself and falling for writer Jason Robards Sr. whom she was seen attempting to rob in the opening sequence. Nolan is quite a tough young broad, and for a forgotten actress, she truly gives a passionate performance. In fact, the whole set-up of this film is quite good, from showing a bunch of rich carousers in a low rent dive being hoodwinked buy a Max Davidson who pretends to be the bartender to Nolan's desperation to get away from mob king Max Davidson. however, Davidson won't let her go with a fight and this leads to an action-packed shootout at the end. It is a bit creaky in its pacing, but the dialogue is good and a good majority of the performances are above average. This won't be arrival of the Warner Brothers gangster films, but with a female anti-hero, that's an interesting twist that makes this unique in this type of scenario.