The Music Box Kid (1960) User Reviews

Pretty good when the narrator shut up!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 January 2014]

"The Music Box Kid" is a decent crime film. In many ways, it's a 1960s rethinking of classic gangster films like "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy"--with slightly different sensibilities. However, the film occasionally is hampered by some heavy-handed and preachy narration. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of it--but it's particularly bad at the end of the film.

Ron Foster plays Larry Shaw. It follows him as he quickly rises up through the ranks in the mob. He's a big advantage over other mobsters in that he's even MORE sociopathic, violent and brash. So, it's not surprising that soon the mob he was working for wouldn't be big enough for him. So, he starts up is own mob--a group of freaks who specialize in contract killings and kidnappings. What's to come of him? See the film and find out for yourself.

For the most part I enjoyed this movie-more so that its sub-5.0 score on IMDb would suggest. But the narration is just too much and the film suffers a bit, as the movie was violent and exciting and the narration was anything but.

Play That Funky Music Dutchy

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 16 December 2008]

Because of the popularity of TV's The Untouchables, the late fifties early sixties saw a revival of the gangster film genre. Not the stuff that Warner Brothers put out with its stable of gangster stars, but allegedly true life stories of real life gangsters. Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein all get biographical films of a sort around this time. Even movie gangster George Raft who hung around a lot with the real deal got one.

One of the poorer ones has to be The Music Box Kid where the names were allegedly changed. Of course anyone who's familiar in the slightest with gangland lore recognizes protagonist Ron Foster as Dutch Schultz, boss of the Bronx in the Twenties and Thirties.

Ron's married to Luana Patten who at the beginning of the film actually thinks her hubby is a most successful insurance salesman who pays for everything in cash because he doesn't believe in credit. Poor Luana spends most of the film dealing with her priest, Dayton Lummis, who's no doubt telling her to stand by her man even though he is a killer. Otherwise she'd be running from this guy.

Stories of Dutch Schultz's temper tantrums are legendary. But even he wasn't as crazy as this guy who was busy extorting fellow mobsters and starting Murder, Inc. which Schultz did not do. When Carleton Young is appointed Special Prosecutor and Foster decides he ought to be hit, the other mobsters see their duty clear.

But that's not the end, although in real life it was the end when Lucky Luciano and company thought too much heat would be brought down if Schultz ever assassinated Thomas E. Dewey. Luana in fact gets the last word and the last word is quite unbelievable.

The title refers to the carrying case where Foster packs his Thompson submachine gun, favored weapon of gangland back in the day. I'm sure many people got fooled with that title and asked for their money back.

An Empty Suit

[peru1-595-630106 · 1/10 · 27 July 2013]

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Were not Robert Foster so handsome and myself so compulsive I would have pulled the plug early on.

The action and plot unbelievable the script terrible with an idiotic happy moralistic ending of sorts. But saying that much gives it too much credit..this movie comes as close to having zero content as anything I have ever watched. There is nothing to dislike as there is no content to the thing.

An ambitious young gangster Robert Foster breaks off from his gang early in his career to form his own killing enterprise. His weapon of choice= a machine gun in a music box (title). His wife eventually rats on him under pressure from a priest when he decides to take down a special state prosecutor.

But I can't stress how absolutely cardboard like without any suspense this thing is...how flat the dialog and unimaginative the story. It is almost like a handful of untalented actors were told to invent it ad lib as the cameras rolled.

Usually I will dislike a movie for something it does...this one I disliked because it does nothing it has zero content in terms of story and acting. It truly is an empty suit. Also unsurprising it is not a B movie but a Z- movie in terms of budget and props as well. It could have been written in an hour and filmed in an afternoon.

One funny thing...this is a costume movie of the 20s made in 1960..however even this is done on the cheap most of the extra women look straight out of 1960 dresses and make up wise with a small unconvincing twists.

DO NOT RECOMMEND

Poor man's Scarface but quite good

[searchanddestroy-1 · 20 April 2008]

Once is not usual, this little Eddie L Cahn flick is rather effective, but very cheap, not a surprise...

The tale of a petty hoodlum in the 20's New York, prohibition era and gang wars. The rise and fall of this ambitious, ruthless and greedy happy trigger fellow. We already have seen this a thousand times, especially during the early 60's, with features such as Pretty Boy Floyd, Purple Gang, Pay or Die, Murder Inc, Portrait of a Mobster, Mad Dog Coll and so on...

So, the "mighty" Edward L Cahn wanted to contribute to this kind of movies, very in fashion.

Of course, the appearance of a priest in the film, and the theme of the redemption with religious ethics reminds Warner gangster movies of the 30's and early 40's...

One scene of this little feature is taken from William Wellman's "Public Enemy". And it's not the grapefruit one !!!

I did not expect so much from an Edward L Cahn movie. Even produced by the usual Robert Kent.

A poor low-budget effort

[JohnHowardReid · 3/10 · 9 July 2014]

Produced on a very low budget, this movie does contain two or three scenes that are mildly effective. But both script and direction are static. The script is weighted far too heavily with dialogue, and it comes across like a cheap television play. Worse still, Luana Patten and Dayton Lummis ineptly contribute a lot of nauseating sentiment. And the characters are always exclaiming what a luxurious apartment the hero lives in -- but, boy or boy, is it a drab dump! Further economies are made by using lots of stock shots of the New York skyline while the narrator DESCRIBES most of the action! In all, this a movie that can be safely ignored -- even by the actors' most rabid fans!

All the notes are flat, and that makes for a sour symphony.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 3 November 2020]

This variation of the Dutch Schultz story is as forgettable as a good majority of the early 60's gangster films that were nothing more than rip-offs of the successful TV series "The Untouchables". Ron Foster's Larry Shaw, a not so well disguised version of Schultz, is a one-dimensional thug, seemingly in a happy marriage with Luana Anders, hiding behind the facade of respectability but really just a punk. there's nothing remotely likable about him, and as his character is revealed, his handsome facade makes him instantly appear ugly.

Having recognized the name of the production company that was an independent unit at United Artists (Palomar), I researched it to find that they were the producers of a series of crime dramas of similar nature that I gave low ratings to, with titles such as "Pier Five Havana" and "When the Clock Strikes". Anders' character, beaten in one scene by Foster when she discovers his real occupation, stupidly sticks around as if nothing has happened, immediately removing any bit of credibility from her character.

Just because this has a seemingly artistic title doesn't make it a work of art, and everything about it looks phony. Dayton Lummis goes down Pat O'Brien territory as a stereotypical Irish priest, attempting to add a moral to the story, even going as far as wearing Bing Crosby's straw hat from "Going My Way". Perhaps he should have sang a variation of Bing's song, changing the lyrics to "Swing on a Noose".