Babyface Morgan

Starring:Mary Carlisle, Richard Cromwell, Robert Armstrong, Chick Chandler, Warren Hymer, Charles Judels, Vince Barnett, Ralf Harolde, Hal K. Dawson, Toddy Peterson, Kenneth Chryst, Pierce Lyden, Edward Hearn, Bobby Stone, Patsy Moran, Emmett Lynn, Roberta Anderson, Sam Bernard (II), Jack Kenny (II), James Blaine
Director: Arthur Dreifuss
Studio: Alpha Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Underrated Cromwell and Carlisle Wasted in Half-hearted Comedy Noir
Baby Face "Boring"!

Babyface Morgan
Starring: Mary Carlisle , Richard Cromwell , Robert Armstrong , Chick Chandler , and Warren Hymer
Director: Arthur Dreifuss
Manufacturer: Alpha Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0001DMXKQ
Release Date: 2004-03-23

Customer Reviews:

Underrated Cromwell and Carlisle Wasted in Half-hearted Comedy Noir .......2006-01-24

BABY FACE MORGAN was a "poverty row" movie made in 1942 by the "B" movie studio PRC. It stars two players who became very well known in the 1930's to the moviegoing public, Richard Cromwell and Mary Carlisle, but never caught on well enough to become major stars. Here they are almost at the very end of their careers working in this cheapie. They were both barely 30!! It's a shame they didn't become bigger because Mary was one of the loveliest actresses of the era and Richard Cromwell besides being quite a dashing-looking man with an appealing gentleness was a very capable dramatic actor with major roles in classics like EMMA and LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER. A third fading star of the 1930's also has another major role, Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" fame, playing the brains running the mob. Armstrong gives the best performance but Cromwell does good work, too. The beautiful Mary Carlisle doesn't have that much to do despite her top billing.

Cromwell stars as a small town soda jerk who is sent for to run his late father's business, completely unaware that his father was a mobster. Armstrong was his dad's right hand man and upon seeing the kid, he realizes the best thing to do is set the kid up in an office in a bogus insurance business while he, Armstrong, continues to run the show. This is one odd little film because it starts off as a gangster melodrama and before you know it, it's turned into a comedy and then it's back to being a gangster picture again. And yes, the comedy is intentional (the movie has naughtier than major studio jokes with one mobster having a pet rabbit, then more rabbits in every scene he's in, Morgan's cousin laughs at a lightly risque comic in a magazine). The print quality of the DVD is not particularly good but it's fairly acceptable. The movie moves fairly fast and is over before you know but then it only runs 60 minutes like a lot of poverty row B movies.

Baby Face "Boring"! .......2005-01-09

This low-budget gangster comedy from 1942 is surprisingly boring for a movie that barely last an hour. Of course, your standards can't be too high for an Alpha dvd, and I guess I got my money's worth. The picture and sound quality leave a lot to be desired, but then again this is no classic!

The plot is simple: when the tough mob boss, "Big Mike" Morgan, dies, no one knows who should take over his mob. That is, until they remember Morgan had a son, and so they begin looking for the potential mob boss. They stumble upon "Babyface" Morgan, a dim-witted soda jerk who's mistaken as the late mob boss' son.

They soon figure out who he really is, and so they persuade him to pretend to play the part of the mob boss in order to protect themselves from rival mobs. What "Babyface" Morgan doesn't know is that his gang of equally dim-witted criminals have tricked him into being a patsy, and soon his blind stupidity gives way to rage. Also, the woman he loves (Virginia Clark) has been mistreated by mobsters.

The showdown at the end is as laughable as the film itself, and not in a good way. It was almost impossible to become attached to any of the characters in such a short time, and the jokes are mildly entertaining at best. This is good enough to see once, but that's about it! My advice is to look elsewhere for an entertaining gangster film.

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