There are some really great parts to In Old Chicago, and there are some really awful parts. Let's get the bad out of the way first: Alice Brady. Not only was it one of the great Oscar travesties for her to win Best Supporting Actress over Dame May Whitty in Night Must Fall, but her unemotional performance as the matriarch of a self-made, symbolic American family was so terrible, it was as if she was a stand-in reading the lines for the other actors' close-ups and someone accidentally filmed her instead. Remember Thomas Mitchell's "land" speech from Gone With the Wind? Alice Brady is given a similar speech to tell her children, but it's one of the most ineffective pep talks ever. It's hard to believe that's the take the studio chose to keep.
Speaking of Gone With the Wind, once you watch In Old Chicago, you won't be able to help being less enamored by the 1939 epic. The famed "burning of Atlanta" scene from Gone With the Wind is hardly impressive once you've seen In Old Chicago, whose plot culminates in the famous Chicago fire started by Alice Brady's cow. You'll have to wait a long time before the special effects are shown, but it is a very entertaining, tense sequence once it shows up.
What's the actual plot of this movie, if the cow doesn't kick over the lantern until the end? Alice and her husband, J. Anthony Hughes, and their young songs, Gene Reynolds and Bobs Watson, travel in a covered wagon to Chicago. J. Anthony dies, and Bobs is given his signature crying scene, and Alice is left to care for the family. She starts up a washing business, and her two sons grow up to become Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. Don is the honorable son with good moral character, and Ty is the scoundrel who steals Alice Faye's heart. While Don's heart breaks, Ty and notorious gangster Brian Donlevy get into a feud about rival nightclubs. That's certainly a lot to keep you occupied before the cow comes into play!
While this is a classic worth watching, for the special effects, and for Alice Faye's signature honky tonk singing, it's not the best movie to introduce you to Tyrone Power. This was the first movie I saw of his, and for ten years afterwards, I thought he was a terrible scoundrel. Start off with something where he's more likable, like The Mark of Zorro or The Long Gray Line. He plays a very good bad guy and you might not get it out of your mind.
Speaking of Gone With the Wind, once you watch In Old Chicago, you won't be able to help being less enamored by the 1939 epic. The famed "burning of Atlanta" scene from Gone With the Wind is hardly impressive once you've seen In Old Chicago, whose plot culminates in the famous Chicago fire started by Alice Brady's cow. You'll have to wait a long time before the special effects are shown, but it is a very entertaining, tense sequence once it shows up.
What's the actual plot of this movie, if the cow doesn't kick over the lantern until the end? Alice and her husband, J. Anthony Hughes, and their young songs, Gene Reynolds and Bobs Watson, travel in a covered wagon to Chicago. J. Anthony dies, and Bobs is given his signature crying scene, and Alice is left to care for the family. She starts up a washing business, and her two sons grow up to become Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. Don is the honorable son with good moral character, and Ty is the scoundrel who steals Alice Faye's heart. While Don's heart breaks, Ty and notorious gangster Brian Donlevy get into a feud about rival nightclubs. That's certainly a lot to keep you occupied before the cow comes into play!
While this is a classic worth watching, for the special effects, and for Alice Faye's signature honky tonk singing, it's not the best movie to introduce you to Tyrone Power. This was the first movie I saw of his, and for ten years afterwards, I thought he was a terrible scoundrel. Start off with something where he's more likable, like The Mark of Zorro or The Long Gray Line. He plays a very good bad guy and you might not get it out of your mind.