The Mighty (1929) User Reviews

Give A Dog A Name

[boblipton · 7/10 · 20 February 2023]

George Bancroft is a gun man for a New York mob. When he ignores his draft notice, the MPs grab him, and the next we see of him, he's in France, slagging his lieutenant, Morgan Farley, as a coward. Farley hates Bancroft for his base mind, but admires his bravery, as Bancroft gets the Croix de Guerre and a promotion to major. Farley dies in his arms on the battlefield. After the Armistice, Bancroft goes to Farley's town to speak to his father, O. P. Heggie, and pretty sister, Esther Ralston. Impressed by Bancroft's bravery, they make him head of the local police force with a remit to clean out the gangs that have arisen. Bancroft sets to the job, but cuts a deal with his old gang leader, Warner Oland, to rob three banks at once.

It's still early days for sound at Paramount's West Coast studio, with the dialogue declamatory and buzzy, but under the direction of John Cromwell, the visuals are strikingly done under cinematographer Roy Hunt. The battle scenes, shot wild from a moving crane, are exciting and well covered by sound effects, and the post-war sequence showing Bancroft's evolution are believable.

Trading Places

[view_and_review · 7/10 · 2 February 2024]

When "Trading Places" with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy came out, the premise was that if people traded places in life their choices would be different. So the poor and unfortunate Eddie Murphy was made a stock broker while the polished and affluent Dan Aykroyd was made a beggar. A similar concept was explored in "The Mighty."

Blake Greeson (George Bancroft) was a hood. He was loyal to Sterky's gang. He had no plans of doing anything different until he was drafted into the Army and made to go fight overseas. There he fought valiantly--or so it would seem.

He fought, and fought fearlessly, because he was a fearless guy. He didn't have any particular love for fighting or his country for that matter. He was just a born gunman with no fear. His platoon mate Jerry Patterson (Morgan Farley), however, loved his country and wanted to prove it in battle, except he was terrified. He had the requisite beliefs and patriotism, he was just lacking the nerve.

Jerry died in the war and Blake lived. Blake promised Jerry that he'd tell his folks how brave he was and how he died for what he believed in.

When Blake arrived in Jerry's hometown he was welcomed with a parade. He was hailed as a hero and Jerry's sister Louise (Eshter Ralston) was waiting in a car to ride alongside him. It had all the looks like she was being offered to Blake as a form of gratitude, but maybe I'm off the mark and that was what people did back then for returning soldiers--allow them to ride with a pretty girl.

Along with the parade, Blake was offered the job of chief of police. The city was plagued with menacing gangs and the city leaders felt that a strong, fearless war hero was the best person to head the police squad. Ordinarily they'd be right, but Blake still had an allegiance to his old gang. And now we get to the similarity between "The Mighty" and "Trading Places." Would Blake be different now that he was on the other side of the law and a respected individual?

Free on YouTube.

The language of the talking film begins here.

[arthursward · 9/10 · 22 October 2002]

In this tale of crooks, war and regeneration are all the elements that would sustain feature films for decades.

On the technical side, we have the Movietone (optical) soundtrack. The director uses it to great effect in a variety of ways. An early fight scene has a participant fall on a bar's roll player and ragtime music springs forth to lighten the fight's mood. Soldiers sing and one lyric strikes a nerve with a face behind a window. At a crossroad in the protagonist's life, a speech is heard through as open door. And at the film's climax, the hero and villain are trapped in a darkened room; their voices and struggling carrying the story. [Some flaws not the director's fault: wow and flutter in reel four, some scenes aren't recorded properly and Ms. Ralston's volume tails off near the end of her lines] The sound is full-bodied throughout the action scenes. Cromwell keeps the camera moving, with many shots so quick they didn't need synched.

Battle scenes are well staged and a TRAVELING crane is used extensively. A charge up a hill is made memorable by this technique. Backgrounds are realistic, especially on the train sequence. They are in-focus and fit the story's progression. The battle contains one process shot done in close-up. It's quick and it works. Gunfire is shown from behind the shooter. I had the distinct impression that "Sergeant York" borrows from two scenes done better here. The onscreen action is equaled by the ferocious tracking camera. This was well planned, as Mr. Cromwell was once quoted as telling a producer, "for every day of full rehearsal you give me, I'll knock off a day on the shooting schedule." On a Cromwell set, full rehearsal meant "with camera".

While the plot's WW I gangster-turns-war-hero story would soon become cliche, good performances and writing keep this fresh. Bancroft scored big at the box office for Paramount as the "big swell" type gangster in "Underworld" (1927), "The Dragnet" (1928) and as "Thunderbolt" (1929). He's even more at ease, here, deflecting hero praise with lines like "gunmen are what they need over here." Esther Ralston is beautiful and she performs well. Raymond Hatton is agreeably over-animated as (and I love this name) "Dogey" Franks. Warner Oland as another heavy and Dorothy Revier is his "moll". Both are fine and Ms. Revier manages to wear the entire Paramount costume department in the course of this film (just kidding, maybe half). Though it may bog briefly in a couple of spots, no talkie from 1929 even comes close to this level of action. Highly recommended.

Mighty indeed!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 15 December 2017]

One of the finest examples of the Hollywood film noir, made before the code was adopted in the mid-thirties, "The Mighty" (1929) is the film in which charismatic George Bancroft turns in one of his finest performances.

The support cast is great too: Warner Oland plays the villain, the lovely Esther Ralston, the heroine, Dorothy Revier, the floozy, while Raymond Hatton makes the most of a character part as our hero's cheer-leader pal.

It is Morgan Farley, however, who engineers the movie's strongest also-ran, as the cowardly lieutenant who wants to be "a fighting fool".

Most inventively directed by John Cromwell, this large-budget Paramount production was once available on an excellent Vintage Film Buff DVD.

The Mighty George Bancroft!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 15 November 2016]

"I use people like you to move my piano"!! that's Mayme's put down when big man Blake Greeson tries to chat her up. Esther Ralston may have been the nominal female star but Dorothy Revier as Mayme, a feisty gangster's moll has all the best lines and proves a natural for talkies, unlike poor Esther whose blonde beauty is the only thing in her favour. Her role did her no favours, she plays a high society girl and in a typical early talkies "I have an afternoon appointment with the Queen" style!!

George Bancroft in 1930 was Paramount's top dramatic star and had America eating out of the palm of his hand. This part was tailor made and tapped into Bancroft's brashness and larger than life personality. America has just entered the War and Greeson finds the marching soldiers "mugs" but also finds the country's fervor will slot right into his plans for some easy money. The draft catches up with him but going to war doesn't change his cynical attitude - a certain soldier does though!!

Jerry Pattison (Morgan Farley, playing the role as though he is right in the middle of a Victorian melodrama) suffers from nerves and confesses to Greeson he would give anything to approach war and life with Blake's attitude. Blake takes him under his wing (in a completely non sentimental way) and when Pattinson dies a hero he begs Blake to return to his family to explain how he finally overcame his nerves. On the way to the town Blake meets one of his old associates and is more than keen to use the town as a base to perform a series of robberies. Meeting Jerry's sister Louise stirs some dormant finer feelings in him but while the faithful "Dogey" (Raymond Hatton) understands, the ruthless "Shiv" (Warner Oland) thinks it will be better for all concerned if Blake is rubbed out!!!

Bancroft had ridden to popularity on the crest of a trio of von Sternberg gangster films and made a smooth talkie transition with "Thunderbolt". Sternberg seemed the perfect director for him but "The Mighty", directed by John Cromwell, was inferior to the films he had made before. He was at the height of his popularity and by 1930 he was being paid $5,000 to $6,000 a week. Unfortunately it didn't last - he started to believe his own publicity, his ego became colossal and within a couple of years Paramount had washed their hands of him.

Character Growth

[januszlvii · 8/10 · 15 April 2022]

I just saw The Mighty on YouTube today and it was an excellent movie, about character growth. It was about Blake Greeson ( George Bancroft) a member of a gang led by. Sterky ( Warner Oland), who is drafted into the Army to fight on WWI. Blake was not exactly happy to do this, he ripped up his draft letter and was AWOL for three weeks and the military had to send four people to arrest him. While in the military, Blake becomes a hero and rises from Private to Major. One of the soldiers with.him was a Lieutenant Jerry Patterson ( Morgan Farley), who wants to be like Blake but is afraid. Patterson ends up getting shot by a German soldier and ends up dying but happy that he was no longer a coward, and wants Blake to tell his father ( O. P. Heggie) and his sister Sue ( the always beautiful Esther Ralston) what happened. After the war, Blake starts to get back into his life of crime, but realizes this is a mistake because before he had one friend Dogey.( Raymond Hatton) who was in the gang and now he was admired by everyone. Spoilers ahead: Sterky and other gang members ( not Dogey) were robbing a bank and Blake and other servicemen went after them. Blake rushed into a dark room ( like Jerry did into the German pillbox), but unlike Jerry, he is only wounded. While this was happening Dogey took Sterky's girlfriend Mayme ( Dorothy Revier) over to Sue ( who became Blake's girlfriend) to tell her the truth about Blake. But in the end, Sue had no problems with Blake being a former criminal and they remained together. The character growth in Blake in the end, allowed him not only to go not back to his previous criminal life ( and probably ended up dead or in jail), but to have a woman in Sue who accepted him for who became is instead of judging him on who he was. 8/10 stars.