Barbary Coast

Barbary Coast (Adventure 1935) Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson & Joel McCrea

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A mediocre Hawks entertainment, on his usual theme of tough, displaced men and women falling in love, with a very strong cast but a rather trite and badly-paced storyline. Miriam Hopkins is the self-consciously tough broad who pitches up in Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and allies herself to casino owner Edward G. Robinson – who has a really funny, ever-present curl trespassing onto the right hand side of his face – only to fall for soppy poet Joel McCrea. To get an idea of just how sanitised the movie is, it's worth noting that Joseph Breen, the head of the Hays Office, thought the original script was the filthiest thing he'd ever read, but regarded the film as absolutely charming. There's some wonderfully poetic Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur dialogue in the opening exchanges ("However soiled his hands, the journalist goes staggering through life with a beacon raised" – just beautiful), but it dries up alarmingly quickly, while the story degenerates into tiresome bickering, before reinventing itself as a gruesome love letter to vigilantism. Breen seemed to espouse a strict pro-death-penalty, anti- double-bed viewpoint that's difficult to get on board with nowadays. (I'm also not sure what the form is on everybody celebrating the arrival of a "white woman" - seems a bit racist.) There are a few atmospheric shots in fog-shrouded San Francisco – though conveying the sweep of the burgeoning town is never even attempted – but the real selling point is the performances. Hopkins gives one of those faintly wooden, sub-Stanwyck, but nonetheless intriguing performances combining genuine, even enrapturing emotional attractiveness with the ability to be a bit irritating, while both Walter Brennan and Robinson make the most of familiar roles: Brennan a hoarse crook with an eyepatch and a quietly-emerging conscience, Robinson a menacingly-mewling tough guy who doesn't really understand how love works. McCrea is cast in one of those parts that can come off as unbearably smug (I'm thinking of Leslie Howard's horrendous role in The Petrified Forest), while the script asks him to swallow some rather questionable plot developments, but he's not bad, playing more fey and sensitive than was usually required. There's also a very funny bit part for J.M Kerrigan, who shines as a drunk judge in an incongruous, inappropriate but riotous comic interlude. Barbary Coast never really manages to clamber over its main obstacle – a disjointed, at times slightly tedious story – but some very nice acting and the odd good line or arty shot make it worth a look, especially for fans of the director.

Edward G. Robinson -- with his frog-face, his embroidered waistcoats, and his single earring -- totally owns this film in the role of Louis Chamalis, self-made saloon king of San Francisco at the time of the Gold Rush. Brian Donlevy also makes a notable impression in a classic black-hat role, as Louis' cool-headed enforcer, and Joel McCrea, in a change from later laconic Western roles, is a whimsical young poet who proves a surprisingly 'good loser'. And where the film scores, for me, is in these unexpected touches; characters almost never do either what social convention or, more subtly, cinematic conventions would lead us to expect. "Marriage? That must have been somebody else..." The final scenes -- in which the villain defies all plot expectations by sparing the hero's life, winning the heroine's hand, and then throwing it all back in her face with a raised hat and a roughness that spares her his knowledge that he is walking to a certain, ugly death -- are nerve-shaking in their intensity. (And far from being a plot cop-out, this is the final fruition of depths to the character that have been developed throughout: Louis Chamalis, over whom only his 'Swan' has any influence at all, yet who cannot be content with the bargain that yields him her body and not her heart, dominates as the antihero of the whole picture.) The script is good, and Walter Brennan (whose role was vastly expanded during shooting from what was originally a three-day bit-part) in particular makes the most of it. Miriam Hopkins is perhaps more effective (and probably more enjoyable) as Louis' cynically pragmatic equal than she is as the redeemed 'fallen woman'; McCrea is unexpectedly engaging as the naive but philosophical youngster who, somewhat late in the day, crosses her path. Much play is made of the San Francisco fog, while "I Dream of Jeannie (with the Light-Brown Hair)" is, to my taste, somewhat over-used in the soundtrack. I found the film a good one, and much more rewarding than biographer Todd McCarthy's dismissal of it as "nominally entertaining in a bland way" ('Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood') would suggest.

Enjoyable adventure is filmed at a lively clip and delivers a fine entertainment. A bit heavy on the ham in a couple of places but entertaining nonetheless. Edward G.Robinson is fine as always although he should have rethought the earring. He is full of brio and shows his versatility but his costume does him no favors. He and Miriam are a fine pair even though he despised her offscreen. A good actress if a bit dithery she managed to destroy her starring career with cheap tricks and constant attempts to upstage her co-stars. The story goes that Edward G. became fed up with it and when the script called for him to strike her he was so frustrated with her shenanigans that he didn't pull the slap and sent her flying to the applause of the assembled crew.

Given the array of talent assembled for this project, the result disappointed me. The script is funny and very smart, but Robinson's portrayal of an 1850s casino boss in San Francisco comes off poorly to me, especially as he basically struts and does the same act as his 20s gangster thing, but wearing puffy flamenco shirts. Hopkins is good, and very charming, in her role, which is the center of the film's plot and heart. McCrea is given a fairly one-dimensional lead. Seems to have been some confusion over what kind of film they were trying to make over at Goldwyn studios.

During the gold rush, Robinson runs San Francisco like a mafia boss. Enter Hopkins as a gold-digging young lady, who apparently is just about the only white woman in the whole city, given how the men react to her. The familiar cast also includes McCrea as an earnest young prospector, Donlevy as Robinson's hatchet man, and Brennan as an old guy named "Old Atrocity." Entertaining film has a decent story but is marred by acting that is either wooden or melodramatic, with Hopkins particularly guilty of the latter. It's fun watching Robinson play the heavy. Hawks does a nice job of evoking foggy San Francisco of a bygone era.

Somewhat run-of-the-mill period piece combining characters and story points probably seen to better effect elsewhere. I could accept E. G. Robinson in his role as a swaggering casino owner in his puffy shirt and earring (and severe sidechops), and he leavens his evildoing with a little bit of pathos in his yearning for a woman who will love him for himself. Poor sap hasn't learned that having people shot in the back is a poor way to impress a woman. Miriam Hopkins does a fine job, mostly, but she sometimes uses her eyebrows to punctuate her dialog a little too much. Hawks should have told her to tone down the brow action a little. The opening sequence as the ship pulls into a fog-enshrouded San Francisco Bay is beautifully shot.

Apparently Sam Goldwyn picked the words Barbary Coast as a title then called in his writers and told them to write a story. That was the way they did things at Hollywood studios in the thirties. This is actually a pretty entertaining movie that catches some of the anything goes atmosphere of San Francisco in gold rush days.Edward G. Robinson is miscast (and has to wear some peculiar costumes) in his role as a bad guy but he gives it everything he's got and some of his scenes are quite effective. Miriam Hopkins is very good as a gold digger of the non mining kind and Joel Mcrea as her hearts desire spouts some poetic dialogue quite eloquently. Good drama of the typically Hollywood kind.

I'd never seen it, never really heard of it until I saw it offered for next-to-nothing and bought it on the strength of a Hecht-MacArthur screenplay, direction by Howard Hawks and a cast headed by Eddy Robinsion and Miriam Hopkins - not the most natural teaming. To say I was bitterly disappointed is to say that 9/11 was unfortunate. I was unable to identify one single frame that said 'Howard Hawks' and even more incredible it seems that Hawks took over from Willy Wyler. There's not a scintilla of originality in the story and even less chemistry between Robinson and Hopkins or Hopkins and Joel McCrea, who provides the third facet of the eternal triangle. Frankly I'm sorry I bothered.