Blood Money (1933)

Director:

Rowland Brown

Writers:

Rowland Brown (written by)
Hal Long (continuity)

Release Date:

17 November 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

HIS "IN" ALWAYS GOT THEM OUT! Only to get them in his merciless grasp! What price bail?

Plot Keywords:

Election | Butcher | Luau | Racketeer | Bank Robbery

Cast

George Bancroft	...	Bill Bailey
Judith Anderson	...	Ruby Darling
Frances Dee	...	Elaine Talbart
Chick Chandler	...	Drury Darling
Blossom Seeley	...	Singer
Etienne Girardot	...	Bail Bond Clerk
George Regas	...	Charley

Runtime:

65 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Company:

20th Century Pictures

Trivia:

Several people are in studio records/casting call lists as cast members, but they did not appear or were not identifiable in the movie. These were (with their character names): Frank Moran and Frank Austin (Laborers), Eugene Storm (Employment Manager), Edward Gargan and William L. Thorne (Men at Police Headquarters), Fred Kohler (Editor) and Hal Price (Cigar Clerk). A modern source also lists J. Carrol Naish as Charley (who was played by George Regas) and Paul Fix, but they also were not seen in the movie.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Frankie and Johnny

Who says crime doesn't pay?

One of the most interesting of the Fox pre-code talkies, for several reasons: 1) It has nice girl Frances Dee as a perverse and masochistic society miss, snarling and hip-shaking and shocking the elite. 2) It has Judith Anderson, in a swell backless evening gown, playing a moll, against-the-grain casting of the most inspired sort, even if the movie never explains her high-tone Brit accent vs. her brother's American Midwest elongated vowels. (She also played a gangster years later in "Lady Scarface," but it's a much less interesting film.) 3) You get to see Blossom Seeley, the great vaudevillian, sob a couple of torch songs, and she's the real thing. 4), and most fascinatingly: George Bancroft plays a no- better-than-he-should-be bail bondsman who works both sides of the street and is terribly corrupt, yet the movie likes him, we like him, and he doesn't have to repent for it. It's lively and violent and funny, and, unlike so many Fox early talkies, it has the fast pace of a good Paramount or Warners flick from the same period.