Roger Touhy, Gangster (1944)
Set during Prohibition, the movie centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out.
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Must See Movie...
How sad is this?
Best movie ever!
The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Roger Touhy (Preston Foster) and his gang are sent to jail for the kidnap of Joe Sutton (William Post Jr) thanks to the evidence given against them by former gang member 'Smoke' Reardon (Henry Morgan). A few years later, Reardon turns up in the same prison. Uh-oh. Touhy makes an escape with his gang but do they get away with it? The cast are good, especially 'Troubles' (Frank Jenks), 'Owl' (Victor McLaglen) and Carroll (Anthony Quinn) as likable gang members. The film plays out at a good pace and whilst it is the story of a true life gangster, the events are not necessarily true to life. For example, although Touhy went to prison for kidnap, he was not actually involved in the crime and later released. The film portrays him as leading a kidnap. The facts don't matter (unless you are Roger Touhy) as it is a good story anyway. One minor criticism is that the film is quite dark in parts and difficult to make out. Still, I'm glad I bought it.
It's amazing to find a buzzword cult movie of the 1960s so utterly neglected 50 years later. True, "Roger Touhy, Gangster" was not numbered among the top ten, but it would certainly have made the 1960s' top thirty. Originally filmed as a 95-minute "A" feature and given a great publicity boost with an elaborate in-prison premiere in 1943, the movie came unstuck when the Hays Office demanded that 32 minutes be jettisoned. Although the events depicted all occurred in Touhy's real-life criminal career, the censors objected that this still gave no license to Fox to show such brutality on the screen. In order to placate the Hays Office, Fox made the cuts and then shot an extra two minutes with the Warden of Statesville Prison as an Epilogue. Even so, the movie still packs quite a punch in its shorn version. Director Robert Florey has handled his big-budget scenes with considerable flair. But while some scenes stagger the eye with their generous budget, other episodes (re-takes, perhaps?) have obviously been filmed on the cheap with some of the most incredible skimping ever perpetrated by a major studio.