I kept waiting for this movie to be better. I love Robert Montgomery, and the supporting players here (Edmund Gwenn, Edward Arnold) are stellar. But Montgomery is painfully miscast as Silky Kinmount, the Chicago tough guy who runs a distillery and inherits a British title and thinks only of the ten million dollars the land will get him. He then goes to England with his manager, Ramsey (Arnold) whom he has coaxed into being such without realizing Ramsey intends to get even for landing in the poky for seven years through Kinmount's machinations. He sees the chance when he gets power of attorney for Kinmont and goes with him to England, where he proceeds to destroy Kinmount's business and keeps him in the dark about his English lands, which are entailed by inheritance and cannot be broken up or sold.
This movie seems to have been made a decade too late for this type of character. Montgomery's attempt at a tough-guy accent is painful and unintentionally funny, better suited to a skit on "The Carol Burnett Show," than an MGM movie. Not a screwball comedy, not a gangster picture, not an English drawing room movie, it's all bits and pieces with no style or substance. Montgomery's charm and style and distinctive flair are utterly absent in this movie. He simply does not have the grit to pull off a true Chicago-style crass gangster.
As a woman, I must object to the fact that the only love interest in this movie is seen from the shapely legs down. Surely a guy like Silky would have a beautiful woman hanging around, doncha think? Like other reviewers have said, this movie had so many opportunities to turn into a good movie, like exploring the relationship between Silky and his British teenage cousin or between Silky and the people who live on his land just for the honor of sharing space with a Lord, thereby redeeming this unlikable character. It does not do any of that, and instead ends as Silky is hung for the murder of Ramsey, after being helped on with his peer's robes by the kindly butler (Gwenn) and a bizarre courtroom scene where Kimnount seems to have gone completely nuts and probably could have qualified for an insanity defense.
Other reviewers also pointed out that the Silky part would have been right for Edward G. Robinson or that the parts of Arnold and Montgomery should have been reversed, and I agree entirely. Some parts simply require an inner quality that lacks even through the best of acting, as is the case here. Montgomery was truly from the upper class and then had to go to work when his father died, so he knew both worlds and could play both, but not this gritty, nearly illiterate, semi-bootlegger type. He could play a cad and a heel, a tuxedo-wearing playboy, or a harried husband with equal ease. This just wasn't his role. Do yourself a favor and skip this Montgomery performance.
This movie seems to have been made a decade too late for this type of character. Montgomery's attempt at a tough-guy accent is painful and unintentionally funny, better suited to a skit on "The Carol Burnett Show," than an MGM movie. Not a screwball comedy, not a gangster picture, not an English drawing room movie, it's all bits and pieces with no style or substance. Montgomery's charm and style and distinctive flair are utterly absent in this movie. He simply does not have the grit to pull off a true Chicago-style crass gangster.
As a woman, I must object to the fact that the only love interest in this movie is seen from the shapely legs down. Surely a guy like Silky would have a beautiful woman hanging around, doncha think? Like other reviewers have said, this movie had so many opportunities to turn into a good movie, like exploring the relationship between Silky and his British teenage cousin or between Silky and the people who live on his land just for the honor of sharing space with a Lord, thereby redeeming this unlikable character. It does not do any of that, and instead ends as Silky is hung for the murder of Ramsey, after being helped on with his peer's robes by the kindly butler (Gwenn) and a bizarre courtroom scene where Kimnount seems to have gone completely nuts and probably could have qualified for an insanity defense.
Other reviewers also pointed out that the Silky part would have been right for Edward G. Robinson or that the parts of Arnold and Montgomery should have been reversed, and I agree entirely. Some parts simply require an inner quality that lacks even through the best of acting, as is the case here. Montgomery was truly from the upper class and then had to go to work when his father died, so he knew both worlds and could play both, but not this gritty, nearly illiterate, semi-bootlegger type. He could play a cad and a heel, a tuxedo-wearing playboy, or a harried husband with equal ease. This just wasn't his role. Do yourself a favor and skip this Montgomery performance.