The Wonderful World of TCM: You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939)

OK, this aired many moons ago on TCM, but the fact that I just got around to it last week is no indication of the quality of this cool Warner Brothers crime flick. This 1939 feature is one of the many crime/gangster movies Humphrey Bogart did before he "blew up," to use the parlance of today (or of 2004, at least). I don't think Turner Classic shows it often, but it's an entertaining if sometimes hokey movie, one certainly worthy of a DVD release in the near future.

As the title indicates, the movie intends to teach us a lesson by dramatizing a conflict between good and evil. Ultimately, however, the real conflict is between Bogart's natural charisma and the effort of the filmmakers to turn him into a creep. Guess which wins?

Bogey is a thug who's sort of mentoring Dead End Kid Billy Halop. In this movie, Halop is just plain old Johnny Stone, a basically decent kid who idolizes Bogart to the dismay of his sister Madge (Gale Page) and her cop boyfriend Fred (Harvey Stephens). Bogey and Billy have some neato adventures, like sticking up a gas station, until a botched pawn shop robbery leads to a murder and we soon find ourselves in a prison movie.

See, the murder weapon Bogart uses happens to be a gun Billy swiped from Fred. The authorities not only pinch the two for the gas stickup, but somehow manage to send poor Fred to the big house for the pawn shop murder. Despite everyone (except maybe Fred) taking a somewhat nonchalant attitude and believing that the case will never hold up on appeals, Madge's beau is sent to the chair. He's certain to fry for a crime he didn't commit...unless SOMEONE can set the record straight. Someone who might have some kind of information that could maybe implicate someone else...hmm...

At an hour and 20 minutes, the film is never tiresome, but at a certain point you just root for the kid to go ahead and do what you expect him to do. The morality play aspect isn't the reason to watch, though; that would be the tough-guy patter of our man Humphrey, who is a lot of fun and brings real star power here. I find Halop's anguish hilariously overwrought at times, and Page and Stephens don't have much to give us, but Bogart is always a treat with his alternately reassuring and intimidating remarks to his young protege.

The supporting cast features great work from Henry Travers as the requisite kindly old longtime inmate--his name, "Pop," tells you all you need to know about him--and Harold Huber as a stuff-stirring con who walks around the entire movie with a big wise-ass smirk on his face. He tries to to get a big escape going, and the whole time I'm imagining how big that smirk will be if he DOES get away. It might require early Cinemascope.

Back to Bogey, though. I don't know who is to "blame," exactly--director Lewis Seiler, the credited screenwriters, the men who wrote the original play, or simply the general prevailing code at Warners in 1939--but the already-growing Humphrey Bogart persona, one which makes his generic hood character compelling, shares screen time with some vile actions. "You Can't Get Away With Murder" makes every effort to undermine Bogart's cool by showing him as cowardly, disloyal, selfish...and, oh, yeah, murderous and without regard for human life. Beyond his criminal activities, though, the ones that we're sort of supposed to resent, he's a real heel to Johnny, and THAT'S what's supposed to turn us against him.

Does it work? Nah. Maybe in 1939, audiences rooted for Bogey to get some kind of comeuppance. As I watch it in 2009, though, the attempts to deglamorize him seem forced, even desperate. The movie would still be entertaining without H.B., but not as worthy of a second viewing. It's that tough-guy delivery, the menacing glances, and the cocky swagger--even before Bogart became a superstar--that make his character cool in spite of the story's best efforts to prove otherwise. It's also what makes "You Can't Get Away With Murder" essential viewing for Bogart fans and a safe pick for fans of crime and gangster pics of the era--and aren't we all?