Barbary Coast (1935)

Barbary Coast (1935)

I miss films like 1935’s Barbary Coast. These are the kind of old-fashioned melodramas that have been driven to extinction. I am not entirely sure that this movie would have been the best kind of old-fashioned film, but it has all the elements that I come to expect from these type of films. For the most part, the film was very entertaining. There is a romanticized and somewhat crass love triangle that lays at the heart of the film. I like this unconventional (for its time) love triangle because it plays to the dark side. The cinematography really plays well to the tone and the atmosphere. There is an abundance of fog and that really gives a sense of mystery to the city of San Francisco, which was known as Barbary Coast to its citizens during the time period the film is set in.

This film was directed by Howard Hawks, who is known as one of cinema’s greatest auteurs. It is not his greatest film, and I would even call this film a major B-production (which means it still is good, but not great.) This marks Hawk’s first production with famed producer Samuel Goldwyn. For this movie, Goldwyn came up with the title and tasked two of Hollywood’s best writers; Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur to create a story under that title. In addition to the love story, they created themes you could pull out of a Western. They created a tale about how you can survive in the lawless West.

There is this gold digger named Mary Rutledge (Miriam Hopkins) who arrives by boat to the shores of San Francisco to meet up with her mail-order husband. She comes to find out that he mysteriously died after falling in debt to a gangster named Louis Chamalis (Edward G. Robinson). Louis also happened to be the owner of the nightclub where Mary’s husband owed debt to. Mary decides to get work as a roulette operator in the saloon of Chamalis. He admits to her that he has fallen in love with her, but she does not return his love. During one walk in a rainstorm, she falls in love after meeting gold prospector Jim Carmichael (Joel McCrea). Jim is on his way home with several bags full of gold he found. Chamalis is going to do all he can to grab that gold and make Mary love him the way he loved her.

The movie has several great performances to work with. Miriam Hopkins is a great actress, although stories have been told how hard it was to work with her. Maybe her personality worked well with the type of unsympathetic character she was portraying, because I could not stand her character for a long part of the movie and that is how it was meant to be. Edward G. Robinson gave a great, villainous performance. He looked every part of the villain type, even with that ugly-looking earring on his one ear. The rest of the cast including the likes of Walter Brennan and David Niven in a very early cameo role do a great job. The one thing that stood out to me the most was how women was portrayed. Hopkins portrays a character who is strong-willed and performs tasks that guys would do (remember this film came out in 1935.) This was a rarity for its time.

Barbary Coast is a lesser Howard Hawks film, but this is a legend we are talking about. The movie was still a very entertaining ride from start to finish. This film might even have the only rowboat chase scene in any movie ever released, so that is another reason why you might want to give this oldie a watch.

My Grade: B