Honorable attempt to make a Frank Capra meets Damon Runyon type flic. Problem is that it is not Capra/Runyon but rather the journeyman Norman Taurog who is directing and the too somber Spig Wead, James Hill and an uncredited Francis Marion writing the dialogue. The result is a film that is lumbering in its pace when it should be sprightly and depressing in its tone when it should be bittersweet. And it is that disconnect in mood and feel that is, in my opinion, the reason it failed to make money, not the fact that the public could only buy William Powell as Nick Charles, as Ben Mankewiecz averred in his outro on TCM the other night. Indeed, the only reason I did not pull the plug halfway through, and gave it a generous C plus instead of a solid C, is because of Powell's beguiling mixture of charm and pathos which acts as a partial antidote to Taurog and his gloomy scenarists.
Review of The Hoodlum Saint
