The Beast of the City │ Warner Archive Collection
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
by CHAD KENNERK
Overshadowed by the more famous gangster pictures produced across town at Warner Bros., 1932’s The Beast of the City is a curio cabinet piece of pre-Code cinema. Produced by conservative studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) at the behest of none other than President Herbert Hoover, it forgoes the studio’s typical polish in favour of taking a big swing at the gritty urban crime drama. With the Warner Archive Collection’s new Blu-ray, sourced from a recent 4K scan of the best surviving materials, this complex look at law and order sees a long-deserved restoration.
Infamously opening with President Herbert Hoover’s stern call for “the glorification of policemen”, the film was conceived following discussions between Hoover and MGM production chief Louis B. Mayer. Functioning as a kind of studio-sanctioned rebuttal to the likes of Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, it’s a morality tale that blurs the lines by revelling in the violence it condemns and asking if vigilantism is warranted in the hands of the law — a startling question, particularly in the context of America’s newsfeed today.
Walter Huston plays staunch police captain Jim Fitzpatrick, who will do whatever it takes to clean up his city. Wallace Ford gives one of his most vulnerable early-career performances as Jim’s younger brother Ed, an ambitious detective whose weakness for Harlow’s Daisy leads him down a dark path. The performances are strikingly naturalistic for 1932; even small supporting roles are played with nuance. A very young Mickey Rooney appears uncredited as Fitzpatrick’s son in his first MGM role and second feature film. Despite its moral stance, The Beast of the City is surprisingly pre-Code, depicting direct violence that includes the murder of a child and an electric Jean Harlow as a sultry gangster’s moll, who dances the hoochie coochie and hints that she doesn’t mind “the rough stuff”.
Director Charles Brabin delivers a world that feels tangible and real, with the black and white ‘right and wrong’ of later Code films thoroughly muddled here. Brabin joined the Edison Manufacturing Company in the early 1900s as an actor, moving into writing and directing roles in 1911. After The Beast of the City, he would direct just four more films; his last was 1934’s A Wicked Woman for MGM. He was notably the husband of silent-film star Theda Bara. With cinematographer Norbert Brodine (who went on to Topper, I Was a Male War Bride, and two iterations of The Loretta Young Show), Brabin captures some impressive shots of men in uniform and the rollout of a row of squad cars, along with evocative glimpses of Harlow that couldn’t have hurt her rising star.
Though she only plays in a supporting role, Harlow’s future husband (MGM executive Paul Bern) booked a 10-week personal-appearance tour for her on the East Coast after filming. Harlow packed every theater and demand extended the tour another six weeks. Incidentally, Harlow was married to Bern all of two months when he was found dead in their home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The year was still 1932 and Harlow was filming Red Dust with Clark Gable, the second and most well-known of their six films together.
Given that the original nitrate negative of The Beast of the City was lost in the 1978 George Eastman House fire, Warner Archive’s Blu-ray is an important addition, sourced from a 4K scan of a fine-grain master positive. Whoever had the forethought during the 60s to make safety positives from the original negatives deserves serious praise. From that best available source, Warner has produced a new restoration that represents the film in top form, likely the best it's been seen since its original release. The 1080p transfer has a few light flickers and some unavoidable age-related wear, but compared to previous home video representations, this disc is a massive improvement. Warner Archive’s disc also includes two early cartoons — Goopy Geer, a 1932 Merrie Melodies which looks beautifully remastered in high definition, and Bosko and Bruno, a 1932 Looney Tunes short upscaled from standard definition.
The Beast of the City is available on Blu-ray 30 September from Warner Archive Collection.
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WARNER ARCHIVE COLLECTION offers thousands of film and TV series direct from Warner’s studio vault. With a particular emphasis on high-quality restorations and remasters on Blu-ray disc, Warner Archive Collection brings rare and hard-to-find classic motion pictures and television series to home video. Often appearing for the first time on Blu-ray, titles are chosen each month from the unparalleled library of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which spans more than 100 years of cinema history.
