Synopsis
A young couple and their child fall prey to kidnappers when a storm drives them into a seemingly abandoned farmhouse.
1935 Directed by George Marshall
A young couple and their child fall prey to kidnappers when a storm drives them into a seemingly abandoned farmhouse.
Cesar Romero Bruce Cabot Rochelle Hudson Edward Norris Edward Brophy Warren Hymer Herbert Rawlinson Robert Gleckler Charles C. Wilson William B. Davidson Frank Conroy Edythe Elliott Orrin Burke Lynn Bari William Benedict Stanley Blystone Jimmy Butler Georgie Cooper Ray Dawe Lester Dorr Bud Geary Grace Goodall Otto Hoffman Harry Hollingsworth Boothe Howard Edward Keane Stanley King Brady Kline Edward LeSaint Show All…
Tainted Money, Guerra sin cuartel
Fox wouldn’t make anything as hardboiled as this again for years. The film was variously praised and vilified for its toughness in 1935, and if it rows back on that a little in its closing moments, it remains a short, sharp shock of a film.
It’s a strange hybrid of Temple Drake, a Tommy-gun gangster flick, and an FBI procedural (which became a central plank of the studio’s programme a decade later), as Rochelle Hudson – with her husband, and her baby, and her dog – happens upon a deserted farmhouse where four psychos with guns will shortly be hiding out after a kidnapping. It's superbly cast – Cesar Romero the pomaded ringleader, Warren Hymer the limping softy, Bruce Cabot suitably revolting – and though Hudson’s role is relatively banal, she is afforded one sensational moment near the end. The photography is absolutely stunning.
Show Them No Mercy is a real quality crime film! And since this was anti-gangster, the Hays Office allows nasty violence! I'm used to seeing this kind of stuff from Warner Bros, but here 20th Century Fox has a go at the genre and creates a action packed film with plenty of suspense! I'm surprised this one is not better known!
This was the time when FBI was working closely with Hollywood to make sure the good guys were the heroes, so in return this film seems to have a lot of benefits of G-Men methods with tricks being revealed on how to catch kidnappers and ransom guys. Plus J. Edgar got a little shout out!
Rochelle Hudson & Edward Norris…
A routine kidnapping thriller that's probably more significant in the real-life history of American law and order than in that of American crime movies. In that it's basically an infomercial for the newly empowered FBI, complete with a worshipful reference to the great J. Edgar Hoover, as well as a fictionalized account of recent crimes, in this case the Lindbergh kidnapping, ala DIRTY HARRY. The actual story content, which has a fancy-free young couple and their newborn baby imprisoned in a cabin by four thugs guarding a recently acquired ransom, begins promisingly-studio journeyman director George Marshall had a real knack for fusing light and dark material and tones, as in the classic DESTRY RIDES AGAIN and sleepers MURDER, HE SAYS…
Very solid kidnap drama with a few unexpected twists along the way. The surprise resolution packs a wallop.
While this is an entertaining film the story was reworked to even greater advantage in the 50's as Rawhide with Susan Hayward and Tyrone Power as the unexpectedly beleagued couple where the remote outpost location added even more of a sense of isolation to the plot. Both are recommended.
A young couple, Rochelle Hudson and Edward Norris, with their baby and dog, seek shelter from a rainstorm in an apparently deserted farmhouse. However, the house is being used as a hideout by a gang of merciless kidnappers, Cesar Romero, Bruce Cabot, Ed Brophy , and Warren Hymer. The kidnappers are not welcoming to Hudson and Norris and lock them and their baby in a room while they debate what to do with them. The situation is terrifying for the couple and becomes more so when the kidnappers learn that their ransom money is marked.
This tense and exciting film never lets up and concludes with a scene that simultaneously manages to shock and relieve the viewer. The FBI was…
This could be just another 30s child kidnapping movie, but it's elevated by Cesar Romero and Bruce Cabot's sweaty performances, a crazed ending, and the almost Takeshi Kitano-like goofing of the kidnappers in their downtime at their hideout. Rochelle Hudson and Edward Norris are the right sort of guileless aw-shucks honest folks caught in the middle. And the brutality of the police response is chilling - surely it would have been at least a little shocking to audiences of the day. Plus every hardboiled 30s crime drama should have a dog for comic relief. Even if none of that worked, this'd be 4 stars for me just for the image of Hudson with the tommy gun. Outstanding.
Simple but hard hitting kidnapping thriller. KK hero Cabot is especially nasty and gets a Bonnie and Clyde squibs across the chest death. Shocking! Fun to see Batman’s joker Romero in an early role.
Solid thriller, with a notable denouement that illustrates the title very clearly
MAY MOVIE MAGIC
Great little gangster movie, with one of the most satisfying endings I've seen in a long time. The whole audience was cheering.