Pretty interesting story, and adult too. Robinson is Pa Minetti, an Italian immigrant, formerly a penurious barber, now the prosperous president of his own bank. He has three older sons -- Luther Adler, Valentine, and Zimbalist. And he favors his youngest son, Max (Richard Conte), who is a lawyer and has his office in Pa's bank.
All kind of cozy, like the warm Italian family in The Godfather. But there's a problem. Robinson has brought his old-world ways to the new world. He's not only the president of the bank, but president of the family too, and nobody elected him. Someone calls him "Il Duce." (Kids, that was the title of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when his subjects hung him out to dry.) But Pa has, in fact, absorbed some of the ways of the new world, only it's the wrong philosophy. The philosophy can be summarily described as, "Dog Eat Dog." Boy, does Pa browbeat his three older sons, both at work and at home. He has Luther Adler, his first born, working in a teller's cage. Efram Zimbalist, Jr., has some menial position too. And the biggest and strongest, Paul Valentine as Pietro, wears a guard's uniform. He's constantly ordering them to get back to work. And he refers to Valentine as "dumbhead" repeatedly. Even at the weekly family dinners, when the sons bring their families over for Ma's spaghetti dinners, he plays opera on the phonograph -- and LOUD, so nobody can hear anybody else. And Pa makes everyone wait at the table until Conte arrives. "Nobody's eat untilla Max gets ahere." The three elder sons don't care much for the kind of humiliation that Pa is dishing out, though he's rarely mean about it. He just takes it for granted that they know they'll inherit the bank one day when he's gone, and meantime they'll have some notion of what he himself went through, as they crawl on their bellies like dogs and can't afford decent apartments for their wives and kids.
How does Conte treat all this? With aplomb. He speaks up for his brothers when they ask him to but he doesn't take it all too seriously. I mean, what the hell, he's a lawyer and Pa's favorite son.
A run on the bank (this is 1932) exposes a few weaknesses in Pa's book keeping. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "collateral." He lends money based on his reckoning of whether he'll get it back, accompanied by usurious interest. He keeps money stashed in a cigar box and writes his records on napkins, things like that. So he's brought to trial and is about to be convicted. The older brothers don't care. Pa's just getting what he deserves. But Conte is representing him in court and, seeing the guillotine blade about to fall, interferes with a juror and is sent to prison for seven years. The cops were tipped off by the other brothers, which annoys Conte no end.
So when Conte is finally released from jail he intends to take care of them but, due to the seasonal interposition of an adventitious girl friend, Susan Hayward, he decides not to because that would have represented the worst of Pa's desires. A free man, he leaves with Hayward for San Francisco and the brothers get the bank. So long, Pa.
Joseph L. Mankievicz directed it efficiently and the script is occasionally very keen. An example of what I mean. Susan Hayward calls Conte and tells him to come to her place; it's a legal emergency. Well, it isn't. She just wants to have some fun with him. He turns her offer down but she says, "Let's go to dinner. I'll get my wrap." Conte walks to the door and opens it, then looks back at her. She drops the wrap on the couch and they stand there silently. Fade out. There's a marvelous scene in a seedy bar. Mankievicz's camera glides along from booth to booth, passing one in which a fat, older man with a cigar is sitting next to a frozen young lady. Neither says a word. A few minutes later, Conte and Hayward look up from their drinks when they hear a slight sob, and there is a cut to the other couple. The girl has covered her face with her hands and the fat man is looking around self consciously. A vignette whose character we can fill in with our imaginations.
I said it was an adult movie but that hint of premarital intercourse isn't why. The characters are ambiguous, as people in real life would be. In some ways, for instance, Pa is a lovable old patriarch, but he's also monstrously insensitive to the feelings of others. And the murderous resentment of the older kids is made understandable too. And Richard Conte's character is aggressive and domineering at the beginning, just as a spoiled youngster might be, but he develops into a Mensch by the end of the tale. Hayward develops too, from a whimsical high-end nympho to a woman mature enough to settle for one man, even if he's broke.
I don't know why this had to be an Italian family, though. The Italianate elements seem superimposed on the family dynamics, like one of those nude celebrity photos in which the face of the actress or model has been placed on a fake body. Sure, they eat spaghetti and Pa listens to The Barber of Seville. So what? The writers have resorted to stereotypes. I hate stereotypes. Furthermore, no Italian boy has ever been named "Max". They are all named "Tony" and when born are not wrapped in swaddling clothes but dressed in iddy biddy suits of rubbed silk.
But that's a small thing in this big, complicated, and largely successful tale of power and jealousy.
All kind of cozy, like the warm Italian family in The Godfather. But there's a problem. Robinson has brought his old-world ways to the new world. He's not only the president of the bank, but president of the family too, and nobody elected him. Someone calls him "Il Duce." (Kids, that was the title of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when his subjects hung him out to dry.) But Pa has, in fact, absorbed some of the ways of the new world, only it's the wrong philosophy. The philosophy can be summarily described as, "Dog Eat Dog." Boy, does Pa browbeat his three older sons, both at work and at home. He has Luther Adler, his first born, working in a teller's cage. Efram Zimbalist, Jr., has some menial position too. And the biggest and strongest, Paul Valentine as Pietro, wears a guard's uniform. He's constantly ordering them to get back to work. And he refers to Valentine as "dumbhead" repeatedly. Even at the weekly family dinners, when the sons bring their families over for Ma's spaghetti dinners, he plays opera on the phonograph -- and LOUD, so nobody can hear anybody else. And Pa makes everyone wait at the table until Conte arrives. "Nobody's eat untilla Max gets ahere." The three elder sons don't care much for the kind of humiliation that Pa is dishing out, though he's rarely mean about it. He just takes it for granted that they know they'll inherit the bank one day when he's gone, and meantime they'll have some notion of what he himself went through, as they crawl on their bellies like dogs and can't afford decent apartments for their wives and kids.
How does Conte treat all this? With aplomb. He speaks up for his brothers when they ask him to but he doesn't take it all too seriously. I mean, what the hell, he's a lawyer and Pa's favorite son.
A run on the bank (this is 1932) exposes a few weaknesses in Pa's book keeping. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "collateral." He lends money based on his reckoning of whether he'll get it back, accompanied by usurious interest. He keeps money stashed in a cigar box and writes his records on napkins, things like that. So he's brought to trial and is about to be convicted. The older brothers don't care. Pa's just getting what he deserves. But Conte is representing him in court and, seeing the guillotine blade about to fall, interferes with a juror and is sent to prison for seven years. The cops were tipped off by the other brothers, which annoys Conte no end.
So when Conte is finally released from jail he intends to take care of them but, due to the seasonal interposition of an adventitious girl friend, Susan Hayward, he decides not to because that would have represented the worst of Pa's desires. A free man, he leaves with Hayward for San Francisco and the brothers get the bank. So long, Pa.
Joseph L. Mankievicz directed it efficiently and the script is occasionally very keen. An example of what I mean. Susan Hayward calls Conte and tells him to come to her place; it's a legal emergency. Well, it isn't. She just wants to have some fun with him. He turns her offer down but she says, "Let's go to dinner. I'll get my wrap." Conte walks to the door and opens it, then looks back at her. She drops the wrap on the couch and they stand there silently. Fade out. There's a marvelous scene in a seedy bar. Mankievicz's camera glides along from booth to booth, passing one in which a fat, older man with a cigar is sitting next to a frozen young lady. Neither says a word. A few minutes later, Conte and Hayward look up from their drinks when they hear a slight sob, and there is a cut to the other couple. The girl has covered her face with her hands and the fat man is looking around self consciously. A vignette whose character we can fill in with our imaginations.
I said it was an adult movie but that hint of premarital intercourse isn't why. The characters are ambiguous, as people in real life would be. In some ways, for instance, Pa is a lovable old patriarch, but he's also monstrously insensitive to the feelings of others. And the murderous resentment of the older kids is made understandable too. And Richard Conte's character is aggressive and domineering at the beginning, just as a spoiled youngster might be, but he develops into a Mensch by the end of the tale. Hayward develops too, from a whimsical high-end nympho to a woman mature enough to settle for one man, even if he's broke.
I don't know why this had to be an Italian family, though. The Italianate elements seem superimposed on the family dynamics, like one of those nude celebrity photos in which the face of the actress or model has been placed on a fake body. Sure, they eat spaghetti and Pa listens to The Barber of Seville. So what? The writers have resorted to stereotypes. I hate stereotypes. Furthermore, no Italian boy has ever been named "Max". They are all named "Tony" and when born are not wrapped in swaddling clothes but dressed in iddy biddy suits of rubbed silk.
But that's a small thing in this big, complicated, and largely successful tale of power and jealousy.