The Widow from Chicago

United States

1930

64 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

English

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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CAST Alice White, Edward G. Robinson, Neil Hamilton, Frank McHugh, Lee Shumway, Brooks Benedict, E.H. Calvert, Betty Francisco, Harold Goodwin, Anne Cornwall

MUSIC Erno Rapee, Leo F. Forbstein

Lieutenant Finnegan of the New York Police Department and Jimmy Henderson, youngest detective on the force, board an inbound train trailing “Swifty” Dorgan, a Chicago gangster en route to work for Dominic, a local underworld figure; Dorgan leaps from the train at a bridge crossing and is thought to be killed. Planting a newspaper story that Dorgan escaped from the police, Jimmy assumes the gangster’s identity and joins Dominic’s gang; but he is shot down by the mob. Determined to avenge her brother’s death, Polly poses as Swifty Dorgan’s widow and gets work in Dominic’s nightclub. —American Film Institute

Director

Edward F. Cline

Entering films as one of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops in 1913, Cline began assisting Sennett and by 1916 was directing shorts at Keystone. In the early ‘20s he co-wrote and co-directed seventeen of Buster Keaton’s shorts, including such classics as The Playhouse, The Boat, and Cops, as well as Keaton’s first feature, the Intolerance-parody The Three Ages. Later in the decade he was reunited with Sennett when he directed two-reelers for such comics as Ben Turpin and Carole Lombard. In 1932 Cline directed W.C. Fields in the memorable satire Million Dollar Legs and became one of the few directors whom the irascible comedian could tolerate. Called in to helm most of Fields’ scenes in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (signed by George Marshall), Cline went on to direct the classic features that capped Fields’ career in the early ‘40s: My Little Chickadee (co-starring Mae West), The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Cline’s last important work was with Olsen and Johnson on Crazy… read more