The Big Boss (1941) User Reviews

Who's To Be In Charge?

[boblipton · 5/10 · 13 January 2022]

Sheriff Ben Taggart is killed facing a lynch mob. He leaves two boys, one of whom grows up to be John Litel, lawyer, speechmaker, state legislator. Machine boss Otto Kruger offers him the governorship, with no strings attached. Litel takes it, and fights for anti-lynching laws, an end to the state chain gang, and the destruction of the money-driven political machine.

It's fun to watch Litel and Kruger face off against each other, but there are peculiar rhytms to this Columbia programmer with its echoes of older, better known movies. It's straightforward and rather bloodless, even Litel's courtship of newspaperwoman Gloria Dickson. It's a result of its 70-minute runtime and the too-efficient direction of Charles Barton. Still, there's a nice twist in the movie, made startling by the movie's speed.

Even with the most unbelievable plot twists, I couldn't help but enjoy it.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 18 August 2015]

The life of a young intellect is changed forever when he witnesses his sheriff father being killed while trying to stop a lynching. His older, wilder brother couldn't deal with it and took off, but for Bob Dugan (John Litel), this is the stepping stone to great things, and that means going into law to try and change the law for the benefit of society. When the audience meets the grown-up version of this character, he is already a state senator trying to remain on the right side of the political arena, and that means staying out of the clutches of the "big boss" (Otto Kruger) who seems to have his finger in every political pie, and much like Mrs. Lovett's meat pies in "Sweeney Todd", these political pies are filled with the human flesh of those politicians he has come to ride over with his meat cleaver. Litel only agrees to his mentor-ship as long as Litel calls the shots, but of course, you know that Kruger is only stringing him along until he has all the ammunition he needs to take over. The help of an ambitious female reporter (Gloria Dickson) aids Litel in seeing the light about Kruger, and the twists and turns and revelations about Kruger himself end up being an eye-rolling twist that is hard to swallow.

In spite of that sudden turn of events in the final reel, the film is truly engaging, almost a poor man's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" without that touch of Capra-corn in Jimmy Stewart's performance. The political corruption is totally believable, and this is basically a continuation of Kruger's role in the Columbia film "I am the Law" (1938) where Edward G. Robinson had his legal career manipulated by Kruger's big boss, and later "Power of the Press" (1943) where Kruger was even more ruthless. There's a subtlety in Kruger's big boss performance, and unlike some of the big money men behind today's crop of political cheats and liars, he's sly but charming in his methods to pull victims into his political web. Dickson is an adequate replacement for Jean Arthur as an ambitious journalist, while Don Beddoe adds comic relief as her sidekick. This won't ever surpass "Mr. Smith" as the ultimate political expose of corruption, but if you take it for what it is and overlook the outrageous turn of events, you too might find yourself liking it. After all, the film does have a point to make, and it ends up being very clear, outlandish or not.

Enjoyable political-crime flick

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 24 January 2022]

We all know that crime doesn't pay. But what can you do when one of your own relatives is a criminal? That's the basic premise of this Columbia programmer that borrows its political ideals and Senate chamber sets from MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. The studio's earlier film, starring James Stewart & Jean Arthur, was a critical and commercial hit, so it's not surprising to see some of its main ideas and furniture transferred to the "B" film unit, as we see here.

John Litel is cast in the role of an up-and-coming senator who is as honest as Abe Lincoln but still rather naive to the ways of Washington. Casting an admiring eye in his direction is a reporter played by lovely looking Gloria Dickson. With this script Dickson enjoys more of a central role than Jean Arthur did in the previous picture, because she is caught between our good guy politician and a big time mob boss (Otto Kruger, as the title character) who seems to have his own plans for the freshman senator.

Dickson's character is falling in love with Litel, and a fellow reporter (Don Beddoe) teases her about it at length. Meanwhile, Litel's becoming increasingly fond of Dickson...but both of them have a lot of work to do before they will be able to marry.

Dickson knows how Kruger's type behaves, and that any favor done for Litel will have strings attached. She wants the new guy to succeed in the capitol, but she also has her own career and will report any major news story that comes her way.

Writer Howard J. Green provide a very dramatic twist two-thirds of the way into the film that plays quite well on screen. It is adequately foreshadowed in early scenes that involve Litel's character as a youngster. The film starts with a sequence in the past, when he and his slightly older brother are suddenly orphaned one day where their sheriff father is gunned down by an angry mob.

The child actors in the beginning section of the film are convincing in their portrayals, and it helps set the correct tone that these brothers care for each other. We see Litel's brother run off shortly after they've been orphaned, and that plot point seems to be dropped. But it all comes full circle in the last act.

Yes, I think you can guess where this is going...Kruger the big boss is conducting his business while using an alias. He is an escaped con that had been imprisoned as a teen. And before he went to prison, he was drifting from place to place, and he is Litel's runaway brother. This is where the plot starts to resemble MANHATTAN MELODRAMA and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, because we have two childhood pals on opposites sides of the law as adults. In this case, the two are brothers, and one has been concealing his identity from the other.

What I like about the film is that Kruger is not painted as an outright gangster villain. Sure, he is crooked and is doing things he shouldn't be doing...but we also see a lot of humanity still inside him. He seems to care about his brother's political career, and he also seems to be quite fond of a newspaper boy that he teaches to play harmonica. These are nice touches that help balance the scales. In terms of the characterization provided for Litel's role, he is not perfect and is not above reproach. It is very believable that these grown brothers both have shades of right and wrong in them.

I have to add that Gloria Dickson is someone that I never paid a lot of attention to before in her movies. She appears in quite a few hit flicks at Warner Brothers from 1937 to 1940, and at this stage the actress was freelancing at Columbia and Republic. It is somewhat difficult to believe she's only 24 years old. She conveys a savviness and there is a light-hearted but world-weary sarcasm that she infuses with her line deliveries, so that you would think she's got to be in her 30s at least. She comes across much more mature than even some of today's 40 year old women!

There's a scene in Litel's office where Dickson has to spill some coffee, which causes her to read a letter that he's written about his brother. She does a brilliant job with this slight bit of business that many actresses would have done by the numbers. We sense that she is a real honest-to-goodness person who acts normally in all situations, and this has made me a definite fan of her.