Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

My Review

“Manhattan Melodrama” is a crime drama film following two orphaned childhood friends – one become a crusading district attorney and the other fall into a life of crime as a notorious mobster and casino boss. Director W. S. Van Dyke does an excellent job at the helm of this motion picture from a script by Oliver H. P. Garrett and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

The cast is headed by Clark Gable as Blackie the criminal and William Powell as the D. A. with co-stars Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo, Nat Pendleton, Muriel Evans, Frank Conroy, Shirley Ross, Jimmy Butler as young Powell, and Mickey Rooney as young Blackie. This was one of Rooney’s first big roles; his movie career stretched from 1927-2021. Jimmy Butler was a child actor who was killed in action in World War II in German-occupied France in 1945 at the age of 23. This was the first of 14 motion pictures that William Powell and Myrna Loy would appear in together, including six of the “Thin Man” series.

The watchable “Manhattan Melodrama” was very popular at the Depression Era box office for producer David O. Selznick, Cosmopolitan Productions, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was filmed at the iconic MGM Studios in Culver City, California.