LITTLE CAESAR

Mervyn LeRoy's 1930 film (released in January 1931) about an aspiring criminal who works his way up through the underworld hierarchy, following an alternate path toward the American dream of success, became the prototype for the gangster film genre that blossomed in the early years of the Great Depression.

There had been several films about urban crime in the silent era, but Little Caesar, with the tough-talking, ruthless, self-centered Cesare Enrico Bandello ("Little Caesar"), masterfully portrayed by Edward G. Robinson, set the tone for the genre in the era of sound. The film was such a hit that in 1933 critic Dwight MacDonald called it "the most successful talkie that has been made in this country."

Robinson's Rico, unlike other gangster protagonists, such as those portrayed by James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931) and subsequent films, is unsympathetic. Rico's ruthless self-aggrandizement clearly associated him with the business tycoons of the 1920s, who had just fallen into public disfavor as the Depression was tightening its grip on the nation. Little Caesar's purposes in life are to make money and dominate others—to "be somebody." His selfish, amoral ways parallel those the public was increasingly associating with the business world. At one point in the film, Rico makes this connection explicit by proclaiming, "I ain't doin' too bad in this business, so far." His rapid rise and even more rapid fall parallel the trajectory of business from the late 1920s into the early 1930s.

Rico is a classic tough guy, but with a twist. He is very much concerned with demonstrating masculinity and avoiding anything that might make him seem "soft." "Dancin'. . .ain't my idea of a man's game," Rico says to his friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.). "Ahh, love—soft stuff!" Rico says with disgust. Yet Little Caesar never shows any manly interest in women and there are clear, if subtle, indications that he has a homosexual desire for his friend Joe. Rico's decline begins when he refuses to shoot Joe, and he analyzes his own fall tellingly when he says, "This is what I get for likin' a guy too much."

As the conventions of the time required, Little Caesar told its audiences that crime doesn't pay by having Rico killed at the end. Significantly, though, in terms of its message to Depression-era viewers, the biggest criminal of them all, the top business executive, who is referred to simply as the Big Boy, is left untouched.

In a famous closing line, as he dies after taking a hail of police bullets, Little Caesar cries, "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" Rico's end marked the beginning for a hugely successful genre that reflected the anti-business and anti-government attitudes of the early 1930s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bergman, Andrew. We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films. 1971

Mason, Fran. American Gangster Cinema: From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction. 2003.

McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941, rev. edition. 1993.

Munby, Jonathan. Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil. 1999.

Ruth, David E. Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangsters in American Culture, 1918–1934. 1996.