“He’s awfully cocky for a man who can’t even crack a hick town bank”
In one of many mobster biopics spawned
in the late-noir period, Corman adopted an atypical expressionist approach, albeit
with a low budget and breakneck schedule hampering the potential for more
stylistic flourishes. Inspiration is drawn from pre-code ‘racket’ pictures as
well as noir – portents of death abound; characters are hamstrung by neuroses. These
gangster films would both glamorise the lives, and sully the reputations, of
its subjects; this is no exception, the director painting George Kelly as high
on bravado but, ultimately, low on courage.
AIP’s austerity dictates that action
is swift and explosive. In the
blistering opening sequence, rather than showing the bank’s interior, the
murder of a security guard is filmed in shadow; it tells us all we need to know
about Kelly’s casual disregard for human obstacles. The gang’s frayed,
claustrophobic hideout imbues a threatening feeling of encroachment. As the
bond between the gang unravels, Kelly becomes edgier and mistrust intensifies.[ii]
In his first film lead role, Bronson
was gifted a more multi-dimensional character than he would often play later, when
he became box-office dynamite, and he dexterously maps Kelly’s complexities.
His command of the gang is defined solely by the lethal power of his firearm. In one early scene we see him assembling his Thompson,
cradling it between his knees in a blatant phallic pose. On the one hand he is destructive,
on the other lily-livered. He recoils when he sees a wreath in a flower-shop
window, and later a skull and crossbones tattoo, while a coffin and its pallbearers
cause him to freeze, sabotaging a bank job.
Fans of Cabot will appreciate her raunchy confidence here. Manipulating men through her sexuality, she hectors gang members and even feigns cuckoldry when Kelly loses his bottle. Unlike her brutal beau, she is given some background; she and Kelly take refuge in her ‘Ma’s’ house, which, though it appears to be a genteel half-way house, is supposed to be a bordello. As she watches Kelly’s grip slip away, her wickedness comes centre stage.
Strictly B-movie fare, Corman’s move into the gangster genre was nevertheless a gutsy addition. It even had a moral line; as Corman stated, “Kelly was just a coward and a giver… A rotten sort of guy, a kind of Hitler.”[iii] The cycle of gangster biopics reached an apogee of sorts with Boetticher’s ambitious The Rise and Fall of LegsDiamond, but here, within the constraints forced upon him, Corman illustrates Kelly’s downward curve from despot to craven capitulator in jazzed-up pulp splendour.
Clark Hodgkiss
[i]
The facts have been changed for purposes of entertainment. While in the film
Kelly and Flo kidnap the child of a wealthy businessman, Kelly in fact
kidnapped industrialist Charles F. Urschel in 1933. Based on information the
victim collected, the police were able to locate Kelly’s hideout. Imprisoned in
Alcatraz and later in Leavenworth, the gunman earned the name ‘Pop Gun Kelly’
because of his tendency to exaggerate his exploits.
[ii]
Bronson’s own phobia may have assisted his veracious performance. Born in Tamaqua,
Pennsylvania, he worked in coal mines, from adolescence to military service,
the experience instilling a lifelong fear of enclosed spaces – see his role as
Danny in The Great Escape.
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