The Purple Gang (1959)

Just so...so bad

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Despite some dull dialogue padding and other obvious exercises in penny-pinching, this is quite a creditable effort from wrong-side- of-the-street's Allied Artists studio. Of course, Allied makes no mention of the fact that the gang members were actually Jewish and that their names have actually been changed to disguise this fact. Nevertheless, the moody, low-key photography by Ellis Carter, the occasionally stylish direction of Frank McDonald (who worked for just about every studio in Hollywood at one time or another. He started off as a dialogue director but soon graduated to "B" movies) and some excellent acting, particular Robert Blake's compellingly psychotic portrayal, give this film a considerable edge over its stablemates. Incidentally, Lloyd Garnell is actually billed as the "chief set electrician". There were never less than three – and most often at least four – set electricians on even the most humble movie. They were vital. If the director was all ready to shoot, but the set not properly lit

Hooray for the Warners Archive collection mostly of DVD films from bankrupt studios like MGM, RKO, and Allied. They sell you a DVD it costs about nothing to record. Want a standard chapter menu? Tough. It's all fast forward to get you lost. I preface this to say there was no reason on earth to re-release The Purple Gang. Robert Blake plays the claustrophobic leader of a cowardly bootleg gang that brutally murders three women..the pregnant wife of Detective Harley (Barry Sullivan) plus a cute crazy dame who wants to confess imaginary murders, and even the sweet social worker that got him out of jail. What really makes the film unendurable are the violent montage rushes that pad out the time almost every five minutes toward the end where the narrator keeps saying the purple gang had some unexplained connection to prostitution. What can I say? Shallow, cruel and unbearable. At least now you know what might have driven Blake to involvement in real crimes.

Most of my 7/10 goes to two things - Robert Blake's effective portrayal of completely amoral, calculating, and mentally unbalanced baby-faced mobster Honeyboy Willard and to the rather detached documentary feel of this film as it is narrated by the cop that has vowed to put the Purple Gang away, Barry Sullivan as Lt. William P. Harley of the Detroit Police. It really has the look and feel of "The Untouchables" except with poverty row roots.There really was a Purple Gang in Detroit in the 20's and 30's, although the character of Honeyboy is a fictional one - the actual power in the real gang was in the hands of four Jewish brothers. The cleaner and dyers war was a real one, except in real life the Purple Gang was allied with the union against non-union independents. There was no rather clean ending to the story of the Purples in real life. Like so many other gangs, Prohibition gave them money and power they could have only dreamed about, and its end sent them on a slow decline with the primary source of their wealth literally dried up.This film is unusual in that there are no female leads or even substantial female supporting roles here. Women are just the subjects of particularly savage crimes by the Purples, and very little more, meant to underscore the violence of the Purple Gang.If this film had been in wider release by a bigger studio, maybe Robert Blake wouldn't have had to wait until 1967 and "In Cold Blood" to catapult to stardom. Here he steals the show, kills everyone else, and gives a truly riveting performance of a guy who really loves his work for reasons that seem to have more to do with a need for power and a desire to be feared than just pure greed. Don't believe the low rating on this one - give it a try realizing it is a B feature from a small studio made just as the production code was losing its grip.

Robert Blake's portrayal of Honeyboy is chillingly charismatic. Honeyboy leads his gang of teenage hoodlums to success in the big leagues of organized crime. The key to Honeyboy's success and his dedication as a "leader" lies in the fact that he is a sociopathic killer and a psychopathic egomaniac. Robert Blake plays it all to the hilt and still manages to make Honeyboy cute and sympathetic.