At first glance, Sergeant Madden plays like a standard police drama, with Wallace Beery typecast as a lovable lunk who adores children almost as much as he does New York's Finest. By about the 20-minute mark, the film betrays every evidence of being bottom of the bill filler--but then it ever so slowly starts to turn into something else. By the end of the film, you realize you've been watching a proto-noir of sorts, with Alan Curtis' doomed character trapped in a web of unfortunate circumstance and bad decision making. Intentionally or not--and with Josef Von Sternberg behind the camera, it could be certainly be the former--Curtis undergoes a physical transformation and comes to resemble the man he loathes the most, a crook played with malevolent brilliance by Marc Lawrence. If you can overlook Beery's brogue (and, indeed, the even worse attempts of Laraine Day), Sergeant Madden is a surprisingly effective tragedy and a real showcase for Curtis, who was clearly capable of better things.
10 Reviews
Moral dilemmas
Jim Tritten13 October 2003
Wallace Beery's excellent portrayal of a stereotypical Irish-American police officer who is content with his lot as a precinct sergeant. Beery's character totally believes in the police force and the law. Beery is confronted by a rebellious son (Alan Curtis) who is urged into the force to everyone's regret. The son is overtly ambitious and wants more than his father accepted in life. Curtis's character gets sidetracked when he kills a young robbery suspect and in turn is framed and convicted of phony bribery rap. The son goes over the edge and kills a policeman and turns to a life of crime. Wallace's character is forced into the moral dilemma of family or duty. Marc Lawrence is equally good as the underworld hood. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Good discussion on what is the proper role of the policeman: a humanitarian or a bully. Strongly recommended.
Maddening von Sternberg
boblipton13 October 2003
Typical Wallace Beery feature rendered weird and beautiful by von Sternberg direction. Although only Beery gives a good performance -- slower and much more introspective than his usual Long John Silver of this era --the von Sternberg visual touches -- the odd camera angle that brings out the lines on Beery's face, or the macrame drapes that cast shadows on the juveniles -- make this a deeply disturbing movie, like Tarrantino directing an episode of Sesame Street.
SERGEANT MADDEN (Josef von Sternberg, 1939) **1/2
Bunuel197610 March 2011
This is another atypical Sternberg film, his sole official effort at staid MGM; I TAKE THIS WOMAN (1940; which is to follow) was another assignment for that studio that would however be completed by other hands. Still, given the presence of Wallace Beery, I thought this would be a comedy-drama whereas it turned out to be a thriller with elements of both the gangster pictures then at their zenith and the soon-to-be in vogue noirs!
That said, the film starts off in a sentimental vein as Irish copper – with traditional heart-of-gold – Beery offers to raise a slew of orphaned or abandoned babies. The catch is that, when they grow up, the kids would cause all sorts of trouble for him: two are in love but another claims the girl (Laraine Day) for himself and, while the latter (Alan Curtis in the kind of role John Garfield would come to specialize in) follows in father's footsteps, his impatience for promotion sees him antagonize a notorious gangster (Marc Lawrence) who had learned to respect Beery and eventually turn criminal in his own right! The latter aspect links the film with his earlier (UNDERWORLD [1927], THUNDERBOLT [1929]) and later (MACAO [1952]) phases and, while MGM was best-known for producing wholesome, entertainment-oriented fare, they did churn out the occasional hard-hitting picture over the years. Beery, too, could be serious and schmaltzy and here he mixes the two to reasonable satisfaction.
Though, as I said, Sternberg was unable to invest the proceedings with his trademark style, the film does incorporate an effective montage sequence (courtesy of Peter Ballbusch, who had worked for the director on his masterpiece i.e. THE SCARLET EMPRESS [1934]) depicting Curtis' 'road-to-ruin'.
That said, the film starts off in a sentimental vein as Irish copper – with traditional heart-of-gold – Beery offers to raise a slew of orphaned or abandoned babies. The catch is that, when they grow up, the kids would cause all sorts of trouble for him: two are in love but another claims the girl (Laraine Day) for himself and, while the latter (Alan Curtis in the kind of role John Garfield would come to specialize in) follows in father's footsteps, his impatience for promotion sees him antagonize a notorious gangster (Marc Lawrence) who had learned to respect Beery and eventually turn criminal in his own right! The latter aspect links the film with his earlier (UNDERWORLD [1927], THUNDERBOLT [1929]) and later (MACAO [1952]) phases and, while MGM was best-known for producing wholesome, entertainment-oriented fare, they did churn out the occasional hard-hitting picture over the years. Beery, too, could be serious and schmaltzy and here he mixes the two to reasonable satisfaction.
Though, as I said, Sternberg was unable to invest the proceedings with his trademark style, the film does incorporate an effective montage sequence (courtesy of Peter Ballbusch, who had worked for the director on his masterpiece i.e. THE SCARLET EMPRESS [1934]) depicting Curtis' 'road-to-ruin'.
Enjoyable film...ridiculous plot...
planktonrules13 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
MGM worked hard to create on and off-screen personas for the stars. Sometimes these images weren't far from the truth and other times they bore little similarity to the facts. A great case in point is Wallace Beery. Through the 30s and 40s, MGM cultivated the image of a giant teddy bear of a man--gruff but with a heart of gold with a soft spot for children. Unfortunately, everything I have ever read about Beery is that he was a total creep--violent, angry and an all-around mean guy. Apparently his violence led to this divorce from Gloria Swanson and Jackie Cooper's autobiography describes Beery as surly and often drunk. Not a nice guy at all...but a sweetheart on camera.
I mention all this because "Sergeant Madden" might just be the quintessential 'nice guy' role for Beery. He is not just a cop--but an almost impossible to believe nice cop! He has an affinity for bringing home orphans and adopting them--he's THAT nice in the film! It's not just because I know about the real-life Beery that this is silly--no one is THAT nice and the film overdid this in the film. Giving him some flaws would have been great, as his character in this film makes Santa look like a serial killer!! Now had this been the only excess of the movie, I could have easily looked past it. However, throughout the film I kept thinking 'this CAN'T happen in real life!'--and the plot does strain reality way past the breaking point! The film begins with Beery adopting kids. However, as his own son grows, he shows a vicious streak. He wants to be a policeman like his old man, but without any of the sweetness or restraint. His methods are to make the public fear him and it's not too long before he shoots a young criminal in the back. He clearly over-stepped his bounds and should have been up on manslaughter charges, but for some odd reason the police look the other way. But, the mob is furious--this cop must be taught a lesson. So, they frame the bad cop and soon he's sent to prison. But he soon escapes and goes from bad cop to a one-man crime spree--killing and stealing with abandon! And so, in the end, it's up to good ol' Sergeant Madden (Beery) to come to the rescue.
As you probably gathered from this description, the plot is very hard to believe. HOWEVER, here's the odd part...it IS very entertaining and is a film you just can't stop watching. My 16 year-old who rarely ever watched old films sat through this one and enjoyed it--despite the schmaltz and ridiculous plot. So, I think it deserves a 6--it is worth seeing despite its shortcomings.
I mention all this because "Sergeant Madden" might just be the quintessential 'nice guy' role for Beery. He is not just a cop--but an almost impossible to believe nice cop! He has an affinity for bringing home orphans and adopting them--he's THAT nice in the film! It's not just because I know about the real-life Beery that this is silly--no one is THAT nice and the film overdid this in the film. Giving him some flaws would have been great, as his character in this film makes Santa look like a serial killer!! Now had this been the only excess of the movie, I could have easily looked past it. However, throughout the film I kept thinking 'this CAN'T happen in real life!'--and the plot does strain reality way past the breaking point! The film begins with Beery adopting kids. However, as his own son grows, he shows a vicious streak. He wants to be a policeman like his old man, but without any of the sweetness or restraint. His methods are to make the public fear him and it's not too long before he shoots a young criminal in the back. He clearly over-stepped his bounds and should have been up on manslaughter charges, but for some odd reason the police look the other way. But, the mob is furious--this cop must be taught a lesson. So, they frame the bad cop and soon he's sent to prison. But he soon escapes and goes from bad cop to a one-man crime spree--killing and stealing with abandon! And so, in the end, it's up to good ol' Sergeant Madden (Beery) to come to the rescue.
As you probably gathered from this description, the plot is very hard to believe. HOWEVER, here's the odd part...it IS very entertaining and is a film you just can't stop watching. My 16 year-old who rarely ever watched old films sat through this one and enjoyed it--despite the schmaltz and ridiculous plot. So, I think it deserves a 6--it is worth seeing despite its shortcomings.
Well-executed Low-key Crime Drama
OldFilmLover1 February 2017
This is a good movie. It's not one of the great all-time movies; it's not even one of the great all-time crime dramas. But it's a good movie. The current IMDb average of 5.9 for this movie does it a gross injustice. It deserves at least at 6.8, and maybe as high as 7.1.
The pacing of the story is good; it never drags. The camera work is good, and the atmosphere in the night scenes is good. It's a visually pleasing film.
The acting is good. Wallace Beery, who can ham it up with the best of them, could have overdone the sentimental Irish cop routine, but he restrains himself to present a well-balanced and credible character, no mere cartoon version of a New York cop. In fact, it is one of the better performances I've seen Beery give. All the other actors, in roles either major or minor, are good in their roles as well. Laraine Day shines, and Alan Curtis is very good as well. Marc Lawrence gets a larger-than-normal supporting part and does very well with it. Mary Field, who often plays domestics with only trivial speaking lines, gets a meatier role here (though it lasts only one scene), and shows she can act.
If the film has any major fault, it lies in the script. Alan Curtis does a good job (especially in the final scenes) with what he is given by the screenplay, but the origin of the chip on his character's shoulder is never really explained, and there aren't many nuances in his hard-edged character throughout most of the film. This makes it hard to sympathize with him in any way, or even to understand what Laraine Day ever saw in him. We feel more sympathy even for Marc Lawrence's gangster leader than for Curtis's angry young cop. Had Curtis's character been better fleshed out, this would have been not merely a good movie but a very good one.
To its credit, the film makes no pretensions of greatness; it never gives the impression that it is telling a more important story than it is. Its story is told in a low-key manner. Perhaps for that reason, it doesn't stand out among the movies of 1939 with their grand themes and larger-than life characters (Hunchback or Notre Dame, Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din, and so on).
I get the impression that this film is given a lower ranking than it deserves because fans of Josef von Sternberg were expecting something else from it. They would have liked it to be more like his earlier, highly stylized films which they consider classic. It's as if the film is being punished, not for being a bad film, but for being not Sternbergish enough. A similar thing happens with Alfred Hitchock's film Jamaica Inn, which is generally ranked very low despite the fact that it's quite a good film (though properly seen only in the restored Cohen edition); it is belittled because, stylistically, it's not Hitchcockish enough. Yet if one watches Jamaica Inn without prior expectations of what a Hitchcock film should be like -- or better still, if one watches it without realizing that it was directed by Hitchcock -- one will almost certainly enjoy it. The same is true, I submit, for Sergeant Madden.
Again, this is not a great film -- the director could have insisted on a better script, or rewritten parts himself. But it's a solid film. It was not deserving of any Academy Awards, but it is deserving of far better than a 5.9.
The pacing of the story is good; it never drags. The camera work is good, and the atmosphere in the night scenes is good. It's a visually pleasing film.
The acting is good. Wallace Beery, who can ham it up with the best of them, could have overdone the sentimental Irish cop routine, but he restrains himself to present a well-balanced and credible character, no mere cartoon version of a New York cop. In fact, it is one of the better performances I've seen Beery give. All the other actors, in roles either major or minor, are good in their roles as well. Laraine Day shines, and Alan Curtis is very good as well. Marc Lawrence gets a larger-than-normal supporting part and does very well with it. Mary Field, who often plays domestics with only trivial speaking lines, gets a meatier role here (though it lasts only one scene), and shows she can act.
If the film has any major fault, it lies in the script. Alan Curtis does a good job (especially in the final scenes) with what he is given by the screenplay, but the origin of the chip on his character's shoulder is never really explained, and there aren't many nuances in his hard-edged character throughout most of the film. This makes it hard to sympathize with him in any way, or even to understand what Laraine Day ever saw in him. We feel more sympathy even for Marc Lawrence's gangster leader than for Curtis's angry young cop. Had Curtis's character been better fleshed out, this would have been not merely a good movie but a very good one.
To its credit, the film makes no pretensions of greatness; it never gives the impression that it is telling a more important story than it is. Its story is told in a low-key manner. Perhaps for that reason, it doesn't stand out among the movies of 1939 with their grand themes and larger-than life characters (Hunchback or Notre Dame, Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din, and so on).
I get the impression that this film is given a lower ranking than it deserves because fans of Josef von Sternberg were expecting something else from it. They would have liked it to be more like his earlier, highly stylized films which they consider classic. It's as if the film is being punished, not for being a bad film, but for being not Sternbergish enough. A similar thing happens with Alfred Hitchock's film Jamaica Inn, which is generally ranked very low despite the fact that it's quite a good film (though properly seen only in the restored Cohen edition); it is belittled because, stylistically, it's not Hitchcockish enough. Yet if one watches Jamaica Inn without prior expectations of what a Hitchcock film should be like -- or better still, if one watches it without realizing that it was directed by Hitchcock -- one will almost certainly enjoy it. The same is true, I submit, for Sergeant Madden.
Again, this is not a great film -- the director could have insisted on a better script, or rewritten parts himself. But it's a solid film. It was not deserving of any Academy Awards, but it is deserving of far better than a 5.9.
Beery With A Brogue
bkoganbing13 October 2010
Wallace Beery pulls out all the stops in scene stealing and as an extra has a touch of the brogue in his speech as Sergeant Madden of the NYPD. Of course when we first meet Beery he's merely Patrolman Madden who finds a baby girl on his doorstep and brings him home to wife Fay Holden. Beery and Holden already have a boy of their own and a neighbor's kid who hangs around so much he's like one of the family.
The kids grow up to be Laraine Day, Alan Curtis, and Tom Brown respectively. Curtis is a newly minted patrolman himself fresh from the Academy and burning with ambition and now married to Day although Brown has a thing for her.
He shoots a young punk David Gorcey caught in the act of a robbery although he could have with some effort taken him alive. That whole incident shows how times have changed, today Curtis would be suspended, maybe kicked off the force for shooting an unarmed suspect. As it is he gets a leery well done, but earns the ire of local hood Marc Lawrence whose girl friend Marion Martin was Gorcey's sister.
Lawrence arranges a nice little jackpot for Curtis and I won't say any more because the plot of Sergeant Madden gets more maudlin and unbelievable as it continues.
Although the private Wallace Beery was hardly matching the lovable oafish type Beery portrayed in sound films even as a villain, Sergeant Madden is the kind of film that Beery was asked to carry strictly on the strength of that appeal. Beery carries Sergeant Madden to an average rating for me, strictly on that appeal.
The kids grow up to be Laraine Day, Alan Curtis, and Tom Brown respectively. Curtis is a newly minted patrolman himself fresh from the Academy and burning with ambition and now married to Day although Brown has a thing for her.
He shoots a young punk David Gorcey caught in the act of a robbery although he could have with some effort taken him alive. That whole incident shows how times have changed, today Curtis would be suspended, maybe kicked off the force for shooting an unarmed suspect. As it is he gets a leery well done, but earns the ire of local hood Marc Lawrence whose girl friend Marion Martin was Gorcey's sister.
Lawrence arranges a nice little jackpot for Curtis and I won't say any more because the plot of Sergeant Madden gets more maudlin and unbelievable as it continues.
Although the private Wallace Beery was hardly matching the lovable oafish type Beery portrayed in sound films even as a villain, Sergeant Madden is the kind of film that Beery was asked to carry strictly on the strength of that appeal. Beery carries Sergeant Madden to an average rating for me, strictly on that appeal.
"Sergeant Madden": remarkable movie on many levels; classic of its time.
jdeureka26 February 2017
"Sergeant Madden" is a remarkable movie on many levels. First, it's an excellent Irish-American melodrama -- and unashamedly so. You don't like melodrama, don't watch this movie. You like strong emotions and interpersonal conflicts, extravagant actions and feelings, people and situations that push it just that little bit too far -- watch it. Second, Berry does what he always does perfectly - - the tough old guy with a heart of gold, with an edge of the maniac in the glint of his eye. The other actors are equally strong, play each part to the melodramatic, Irish-American hilt; family, loyalty, work, love, comradeship, the whole wonderful and emotional lot. Third, the crowing touch is the blend of direction and scenery & settings, the rich tapestry of indoors and outdoors urban backdrop of late 1930s USA. Josef von Sternberg, as usual, saw and found God in the details. (Inspect the living room or the boarding house!) Watch it. Enjoy. They don't make'em like this anymore. Except as a parody. Which this is not. Here's the real thing.
Moving story
searchanddestroy-126 November 2022
I don't think that's a true crime film, but certainly a dark drama for sure. Wallace Berry gives one more terrific performance, moving, where the audience, at least me, feels very close to him, feels empathy towards him. The father son relationship is pretty well evoked in an unusual way, at least in the situation where both belong to the force. I don't remember such a scheme, nor this Josef Von Sternberg's film and it was very refreshing to watch it again. The actor playing the young cop is excellent, nearly stealing the film from Berry. A good film, good father son relation study. It deserves to be discovered again. The last minute is totally lousy, worthless, smashing the previous drama part.... Such a shame.
Cop tangles with the mob
ksf-213 September 2017
Larger than life Wallace Beery is Sergeant Madden, the cop on the beat, who can solve any problem. About twenty minutes in, we jump ahead to when his son Dennis is applying to the police academy, and must learn some hard lessons. Alan Curtis plays "Dennis", and died young at 43, after surgery. Interesting note... Don Haines plays Milton; Haines enlisted early in the war, and died fighting in Africa at the young age of 23. Also look for David Gorcey (Punchy).. younger brother of the better known Leo Gorcey from the "Bowery Boys" films. In the story, Dennis is stubborn, and can't seem to get along with anyone, including members of his own family. Dennis is sweet on Eileen (Laraine Day) , the girl that the family had taken in as a baby. This was one of Day's early roles, and was only 18. Dennis gets into all kinds of trouble, and Dad (Beery) tries to get him out of it, if he can. Pretty good story. Very typical in the days of the mob and a mix of good cops and bad cops. Only 90 votes as of today. Must not be shown on Turner Classics very often. It's pretty good; hope they show it more frequently. Directed by Josef von Sternberg, who had been nominated for Oscars in 1931 1nd 1932.
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