BY FRED BLOSSER
Although
largely forgotten today, Richard Barthelmess was a popular star in silent
movies and the early sound era, often cast as characters who embodied
small-town American values of modesty and integrity. In “The Finger Points,†a 1931 crime
melodrama from First National and Vitaphone, Barthelmess’ Breckenridge Lee
relocates from Savannah, Ga., to a big city up north (unnamed, but clearly
Capone-era Chicago). A reporter, Lee
carries a letter of recommendation from his former editor. Impressed by the referral and Lee’s own
soft-spoken earnestness, the publisher of the city’s influential morning
newspaper, “The Press,†gives him a job and then leaves him to fend for himself
on a starting salary of $39 per week, minus $4 for expenses. He’s hardly at his desk for a day before the
publisher exhorts the newsroom to “make a fight of it†against the racketeers
who infest the city. Jaded reporter
Breezy (Regis Toomey) dismisses the pep talk as a feeble ploy to boost
circulation; he’s heard it before. But
Lee is inspired. Acting on a tip, he
discovers that a private club about to open in a posh neighborhood is actually
a Mob front for illegal gambling. When
Lee refuses a bribe to kill the story and police raid the club, the gangsters
retaliate. Two goons beat him up in an
alley with the unspoken but clear warning to lay off in the future. Emerging from the hospital, Lee determines to
continue his good work -- until the medical bills arrive and his boss refuses
to cover the expenses.
Lee
decides it’s time to look out for himself, and goes into partnership with
smooth-talking mobster Blanco (Clark Gable). Calling up his fellow racketeers one by one, Blanco says that Lee plans
to expose them next, unless he’s paid off to look the other way. Those who come up with the requisite
kickbacks are left alone, with Lee reluctantly allowing Blanco the bigger cut,
while the uncooperative find themselves on the front page and in jail. Lee and Blanco benefit even when someone
refuses to fork over. Blanco has one
fewer competitor, and Lee furthers his reputation as a fearless crusader,
winning the affection of fellow newspaper staffer Marcia. But Marcia is disillusioned when she sees Lee
loading a bundle of cash into his safe-deposit box at the local bank. She correctly reasons that the money adds up
to way more than her sweetheart’s meager take-home pay. Marcia is played by the luminous Fay Wray,
whose entrance in one scene, wearing a mink shoulder-wrap with the little
critter’s head and feet still attached, is bound to outrage today’s
fashionistas and PETA activists in equal measure. Women in the 1931 audience probably panted in
envy. Maybe the goth girls of 2020, too.
Introduced
by Blanco to the kingpin at the top of the city’s underworld, Lee brazenly
tells the big boss that he knows of the mastermind’s plan to “open up a regular
little kingdom of crime†in the neighboring town of Waverly. The kingpin is shown only from the back and
simply called “Number One†(shades of the early James Bond films!), but
moviegoers of 1931 would have recognized the allusion to Al Capone and his
infamous takeover of Cicero, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, in the late
1920s. Lee says he’ll keep the story out
of the paper for $100,000, about $1.7 million today. Number One agrees but warns that if the story
happens to break, he’ll hold Lee accountable. He punctuates the threat by jabbing his finger at the journalist. The gesture is underscored in an
Expressionist-style close-up, foreshadowing the way that fate too will finger
the overreaching reporter by the end of the film.
“The
Finger Points†isn’t remotely as well- known as two other gangland melodramas
released by the Warner Brothers/First National/Vitaphone studio the same year,
“The Public Enemy†and “Little Caesar,†despite an impressive pedigree of John
Monk Saunders and W.R. Burnett as the scriptwriters and John Francis Dillon as
director. Some critics blame
Barthelmess, reasonably pointing out that he lacks the still-riveting feral
energy of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson in the other movies. Those critics suggest that Gable instead
should have been cast as the lead, much as Eddie Woods was swapped out for
Cagney as the star of “The Public Enemy†once the early rushes showed that
Cagney in a smaller part blew Woods off the screen in their scenes
together. In fairness, even the critics
would have to admit that the low-key, put-upon Barthelmess better serves the
basic theme of the story than the magnetic Gable would have. It’s one that would have affirmed the
prejudices of 1931‘s largely rural audiences: When middle-class morality is put
to the test by the seductive vices of the big city, the vices inevitably win,
but the cost is high. Gable fans will be
pleased anyway that Blanco, fittingly, has the final cynical word in the
closing scenes. “The Finger Points†is
available from the Warner Archive Collection as a manufactured-on-demand DVD
with no menu, no SDH subtitles, and no special features. The visual quality is clear but a little
soft. That poses no problems for those
of us who originally devoured movies like this as kids on low-def TV in the
early 1960s, when classic films filled the daytime broadcast hours now claimed
by Dr. Phil, Ellen, Kelly, and Rachel.
The region-free DVD can be ordered from the Cinema Retro Movie Store.
Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon