Little Caesar [PG]

As small-town thieves, Caesar ‘Rico’ Bandello and his partner Joe recognize a dead-end future staring at them. In a determined move to avoid such a future, they move to the big city where Joe falls in love and decides to go clean, getting a job as a dancer. Rico, on the other hand, gets a taste of gangster life in the big city, and he likes it. Starting in a small gang and skyrocketing to the top, Rico soon becomes the seminal crime boss in town, but it won’t take long for his enlarged ego to lead him to a premature end. 

Amongst the first gangster films of the Sound Era that had a hand in defining the genre, Little Caesar still has the power to enthral with its memorable performances, bouts of classic gangster action, and snappy script. 

As small-town thieves, Caesar ‘Rico’ Bandello and his partner Joe recognize a dead-end future staring at them. In a determined move to avoid such a future, they move to the big city where Joe falls in love and decides to go clean, getting a job as a dancer. Rico, on the other hand, gets a taste of gangster life in the big city, and he likes it. Starting in a small gang and skyrocketing to the top, Rico soon becomes the seminal crime boss in town, but it won’t take long for his enlarged ego to lead him to a premature end. 

Produced during the Great Depression, Little Caesar is a film all about the desire for individual achievement, a theme that is highlighted more so by the financial circumstances of its production period. Despite the occasional touch of compassion that seeps through, e.g. the promotion of loyalty and friendship during a fellow gang member’s funeral, feeling for one’s fellow man is thrown to the winds and greed and self-interest sits in the driver’s seat. 

The script is a classic collection of gangster banter and jargon with memorable lines and threats coming every which way, delivered with an almost musical eloquence. So precise is the timing and pace that it’s hard to consider disrupting the flow by pausing the film. 

Edward G. Robinson as Little Caesar himself is highly memorable, delivering a wonderfully psychotic and egocentric performance as the pugnacious, fat little squirrel who won’t take no crap from nobody. An egocentric pug-dog on steroids, Edward sets the bar as a great archetypal gangster, especially since he hated guns in real life and actually had his eyelids taped in the film to keep him from blinking whenever he shot someone. 

Starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr., Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Ince, Thomas E. Jackson, Stanley Fields, Maurice Black, George E. Stone, Armand Kaliz, and Nicholas Bela, Little Caesar is a classic gangster movie filled with action, romance, suspense, drama, and great banter. Of course, the genre has progressed substantially, but when you go back to these classics, they don’t seem to lose any of their initial integrity or impact. Even Little Caesar’s final line still rings within the ears.