Law of the Underworld (1938)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

From my favorite movies..

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

***SPOILERS*** Ridicules movie about a gentleman gangster Gene Fillmore, played by the square jawed Chester Morris, with a heart of gold who gets these not very bright and barley out of their teens youngsters Annie Porter,Anne Shirley, and Tommy Brown, Richard Bond, to help him pull off a jewel robbery that ends up with the two facing both life in prison as well as the electric chair for their effort. After being mugged in New York's Central Park of their wedding money-A cool $136.00- by big time gangster Rocky, Eduardo Ciannelli, and his hoodlum pal the two decide to single handily knock off Rocky's gang headquarters only to end up on the short end of the stick. That's by them being overpowered by the gangsters, who outnumbered them some 10 to 1, and about to be whacked by them. In steps the new gang boss Gentelman Gene Fillmore who plans after saving their behinds to use the two simpletons as parts in his next job a midtown jewel robbery.Mindlessly going along with Fillmore's plan the robbery soon backfires when the hot headed and trigger happy Rocky ended up killing the store owner and critically wounding his employee. This against Fillmore's strict orders not to use deadly force in robbing the store at all cost. Now faced with the death penalty after being caught and identified as the man who pulled off the robbery, even though he was nowhere near the scene when the killing took place, Tommy can get fried or electrocuted for the crime that he didn't commit. As for Anne she can end up behind bars for the rest of her life for being an accomplice in the robbery murder.***SPOILERS*** Fillmore realizing that Rocky screwed up the entire job confronts him at his hideout and the two end up shooting it up with Rocky getting the worst of it. Being tried by his peers, fellow gangsters, Fillmore looks like he about to be cooked or shot for killing Rocky until the witness to the killing Dorothy Palmer, Lee Patrick, the late Rocky's gun moll was found out to have framed him! And in return was shot and killed by one of Fillmore loyal followers, who didn't for a moment believes a word that she said, Batsy(Paul Guylfoyle)right under the noses of the police who were there to protect her!Well we still have the fact that Tommy is to face the electric chair for the murder of the jewelry store owner but now Fillmore getting religious in him having an innocent man sent to the electric chair because of his actions admits he was behind the jewel robbery and, even though he didn't pull the trigger, and killing of the shop owner. We don't know if Fillmore got chair or not he could have well have gotten life without parole since the movie came to a sudden end after Fillmore's confession. But that doesn't excuse both Tommy & Anne who brainlessly went along with Fillmore's crazy & insane plan that set this whole mess of a failed jewel robbery into motion.

The absolute worst part about this movie, besides the awful dialog, is the performance by Eduardo Cianelli. What a crap actor he was. He really sucked. He has a stupid accent. He acts like a bad ass but is really a pussy. His acting isn't good. I just keep writing because I need ten lines on order to get published. Eduardo Cianelli was a horrible actor. I don't see how he got an acting job. He was a really bad actor. I have to keep writing to get 10 lines of text. The premise behind the movie was OK but the writing and dialog was really bad. there were some other crap actors in the movie too, like the old dried up blonde who played rocky's girlfriend. She was nasty looking and not a good actress. did people really talk the way they do in these old movies?

Law Of The Underworld contains some nice performances by Chester Morris, Lee Patrick, and Eduardo Ciannelli and sad that they are wasted in a muddle of a film. Quite frankly this thing is unbelievable.Richard Bond and Anne Shirley are a pair of engaged folks who apparently have no street smarts and flash a roll around some gangsters. One of them Eduardo Ciannelli is a particularly murderous individual who hasn't been getting his financial due from the big boss Chester Morris. Still this big time heist guy robbing these kids for walking around money is really dumb.But that's nothing to how dumb Shirley and Bond are who decide to stick up the stick up men and get their $136.00 nest egg back. Morris is in the room now and he overpowers them. But he decides he can use these two as a kind of shill for his next job which is jewelry store robbery.It all of course both goes wrong and the film keeps going downhill from there. Lee Patrick is a nightclub singer and a really bad dame who's been two timing Morris with Ciannelli. Walter Abel repeats the role he had in Warner Brothers Racketbusters as a Thomas E. Dewey type special prosecutor.The story is pretty unbelievable, why didn't those two young people just go to the cops and make a police report of the robbery? I guarantee you if you see Law Of The Underworld you won't figure it out either.

Again and again during the course of this film you might think that the movie might in fact turn out to be a reasonably good little film. However, due to really awful writing that occasionally creeps onto the screen, the overall effort is very, very poor, so don't get your hopes up with this little film.The movie starts by showing a young couple being robbed in Central Park. It isn't surprising this happens--after all, they did a lousy job of concealing their wad of cash meant for their honeymoon. And, oddly, when a cop comes upon the robbery, the couple say nothing and don't ask for help--allowing the two crooks to continue robbing them and get away!! Even dumber is later, when the two burst into a room full of hoodlums and demand their money back at gunpoint!!! Believe it or not, this very, very naive couple only behave more stupidly throughout the course of the film.While these two dummies seem too idiotic to believe, the rest of the actors in leading roles are pretty good---at least at first. Eduardo Cianelli is excellent as a hot-headed hood and Chester Morris is generally good as the leader of a gang. However, as the film concludes, Morris is so stupid that you wonder if hanging around this couple perhaps wore off on him--such as a stupid virus!! While parts of the film work, the bad parts are what I was left remembering. Even though I am a huge fan of classic Hollywood films, this is one I can't recommend and can never see myself seeing again. Avoid it--you'll be doing yourself a favor.By the way, if you look carefully, you'll see that a member of the gang is a very young Jack Carson before he was a star.