Smart Money (1931)

Smart Money is Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney's only screen pairing, they play barbers of all things, but barbers who are propelled to the top through illegal gambling. Robinson is the lead and star, he had been propelled to stardom a short time earlier with Little Caesar, Cagney was still on the way up, The Public Enemy would be released a short time later. So this is really Robinson's film, and it is important to note that his character is not a bootlegger, he's a gambler, and a surprisingly kind and generous one (which is to make his character more sympathetic) but with a weakness for blonds, which will prove his downfall. I found the movie quiet likable, and kind of odd as gangster movies go, in pacing, in plot, and in how sympathetically the characters are rendered, at least the criminal ones, the law in this film is not very likable and even though the production code was not enforced yet it was important that the bad guy, even a nice bad guy, not get away with it. A slightly odd, mostly forgotten film that has a strange kind of quasi-freshness to it, even 88 years later. ***