Cinema Revisited: Blackmail (1939)
After filming a surprisingly effective gangster drama at MGM with "The Last Gangster" (1937), Edward G. Robinson returned to the studio a couple years later for the exciting drama "Blackmail" (1939). Usually the Warner Brothers-based tough guys needed to be at their home studio to be truly effective, as their characters were a bit watered down at the glossy MGM. But Robinson was the exception. This continued the following year with another visit to MGM to star in "Unholy Partners" (1941).
The story features Eddie G. as an adventurous oil field owner who bravely battles huge blazes his oil rigs. He is good at his work, respected by his peers, and enjoys the comfort of a good family, which includes a wife and child. However, unknown to all of them, he once escaped from a southern chain gang years earlier. Long removed from his past and settled into success and happiness, he is visited by a figure from this past who generates the blackmail that disrupts his life.
Robinson explores other levels of the tough guy in this absorbing and exciting drama. Not only do we see the snarling character he usually plays, which represents his past, but also a man who is tough enough to maintain a difficult job and a family despite this past. Robinson's character is a man who has truly moved on, and the ominous figure from another part of his life represents a tumult that threatens to destroy what he has since gained.
Gene Lockhart turns in what may be his finest performance as the blackmailer. It is so different from the loveable, jittery Mr. Cratchet in "A Christmas Carol" or the harried Mayor in "His Girl Friday," and it completely guides the narrative's entire conflict. Wicked, smarmy, and dislikable at the most extreme level, Lockhart fills his performance with nuance that makes him increasingly more unsettling.
Ruth Hussey, who would score big in "The Philadelphia Story" the following year, isn't utilized much here but is still effective as Robinson's supportive wife. Bobs Watson, late of "Boys Town," plays his son. Guinn "Big Boy" Williams is sort of an ersatz comic relief, with his amiable dumb ox persona, and lightens the heavier scenes.
Director H.C. Potter didn't helm too many movies but crossed over several genres, from the lighhearted "The Farmer's Daughter" to the Fred Astaire musical "Second Chorus," to the wild comedy of "Hellzapoppin." His succession of shots and effective framing of each scene make this perhaps his best work. He effectively uses montage for one transition sequence, and his choice of shots during the prison/chain gang sequences are especially impressive.
"Blackmail" was screened via a recent TCM broadcast, but it is available on DVD.