By Richard Harland Smith
The Big Shakedown
Brief Synopsis
A racketeer breaks into black-market medicine.
Cast & Crew
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John Francis Dillon
Director
Charles Farrell
Jimmy [Morrell]
Bette Davis
Norma [Nelson]
Ricardo Cortez
[Dutch] Barnes
Glenda Farrell
Lil [Lily Duran]
Allen Jenkins
Lefty
Film Details
Also Known As
The Shakedown
Genre
Crime
Drama
Release Date
Jan
6,
1934
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
First National Pictures, Inc.; The Vitaphone Corp.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 4m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
7 reels
Synopsis
New Yorkers Norma Nelson and Jimmy Morrell plan to get married just as soon as their neighborhood drugstore starts to make money. The opportunity presents itself one day when former bootlegger Dutch Barnes stops in for a headache powder. Jimmy is out of the brand Dutch requests, but offers to make up one just like it. On learning that Jimmy can make up duplicates of everything in the store for less money, Dutch offers Jimmy a job manufacturing counterfeit toothpaste. Although he doesn't like the idea, Jimmy decides there is no real harm in it and agrees. Dutch branches out into cosmetics and once again Jimmy participates despite Norma's disapproval. Jimmy balks, however, when Dutch asks him to make a popular antiseptic, explaining that he is unable to get the essential ingredient. Dutch offers him a bonus, which enables Jimmy to marry Norma, and he reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, Dutch's former girl friend, Lily Duran, jealous over his attentions to another woman, gives evidence against him, and the antiseptic company prosecutes. Sheffner, the chemist who invented the formula, makes a personal visit to Jimmy to warn him, and Jimmy agrees to sever his association with Dutch. To prevent this, Dutch makes sure that Jimmy is involved in Lily's murder. Now that there is no witness, the company is forced to drop their lawsuit. With this new hold on Jimmy, Dutch forces him to make fake digitalis. Norma is given some during childbirth and loses her baby. Vengefully, Jimmy goes after Dutch, but Sheffner gets there before him. He shoots Dutch, who falls into a vat of hydrochloric acid. Jimmy tells everything to the district attorney. Dutch's men go to prison, Jimmy is exonerated, and he and Norma go back to running a simple neighborhood drug store.
Director
John Francis Dillon
Director
Cast
Charles Farrell
Jimmy [Morrell]
Bette Davis
Norma [Nelson]
Ricardo Cortez
[Dutch] Barnes
Glenda Farrell
Lil [Lily Duran]
Allen Jenkins
Lefty
Henry O'neill
Sheffner
Dewey Robinson
Slim
John Wray
Gardinella
Philip Faversham
John
Robert E. O'connor
Regan
Renee Whitney
George Pat Collins
Gyp
Adrian Morris
Trigger
Ben Hendricks
Spike
George Cooper
Shorty
Earl Foxe
Carey
Samuel S. Hinds
Kohlsadt
Sidney Miller
Jewish boy
James C. Eagles
Flashy man
Charles Williams
Timid man
Matt Briggs
Robert Wilbor
Ben Taggert
Cop
Sam Godfrey
First drug store proprietor
Francis Sayles
Second drug store proprietor
Harry C. Bradley
Third drug store proprietor
Katherine Clare Ward
Mrs. Fagan
Robert Wayne
Marriage clerk
James Spottswood
First process server
Philip Morris
Second process server
Wallis Clark
Lindstrom
Frederick Burton
Houston Sims
William B. Davidson
District Attorney
Lee Shumway
Connelly
Jack Kenny
Paper seller
Oscar Apfel
Doctor
Charles Hills Mailes
Doctor
Landers Stevens
Doctor
Larry Steers
Doctor
Alphonz Ethier
Norma's Doctor
Antrim Short
Taxi driver
Frank Layton
Dr. Boutellier
Ed Stanley
Harris
Edward Le Saint
Fillmore
John Hyams
Smith
Eleanor Jackson
May Foster
Crew
Film Details
Also Known As
The Shakedown
Genre
Crime
Drama
Release Date
Jan
6,
1934
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
First National Pictures, Inc.; The Vitaphone Corp.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 4m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
7 reels
Articles
The Big Shakedown
One of several movies made by Bette Davis in 1933, The Big Shakedown (1934) is considered the runt of the litter - if only because the actress is stuck playing the good girl role of fiancé (and later wife) to pharmacist hero Charles Farrell while fourth-billed Glenda Farrell, as a racketeer's moll, gets to have all the fun. (Worse yet, the bleach-blonde Davis gets to play no part at all in a wild hair-pulling catfight between Farrell and Renee Whitney, which seems a missed opportunity.) Based on an original story by screenwriters Niven Busch and Samuel Engels titled "Cut Rate," The Big Shakedown finds New York bootlegger Ricardo Cortez shifting business models from bathtub hooch to the growth market of imitation pharmaceuticals - a scam that runs the gamut from knock-off toothpaste to a useless substitute for digitalis. (The film marked the last directorial effort of John Francis Dillon, who succumbed to, of all things, a fatal heart attack in July 1934.) One of the last Hollywood movies produced before the institution of the Production Code, The Big Shakedown climaxes with one of cinema's first acid bath demises, foreshadowing in its own indirect way an extreme of movie violence that would not again be permissible onscreen in America for at least thirty years. On the horizon for jobbing actress Bette Davis was a 1935 Academy Award nomination for Of Human Bondage (1934) and a 1936 Oscar for Dangerous (1935).
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
The Big Shakedown
One of several movies made by Bette Davis in 1933, The Big Shakedown (1934) is considered the runt of the litter - if only because the actress is stuck playing the good girl role of fiancé (and later wife) to pharmacist hero Charles Farrell while fourth-billed Glenda Farrell, as a racketeer's moll, gets to have all the fun. (Worse yet, the bleach-blonde Davis gets to play no part at all in a wild hair-pulling catfight between Farrell and Renee Whitney, which seems a missed opportunity.) Based on an original story by screenwriters Niven Busch and Samuel Engels titled "Cut Rate," The Big Shakedown finds New York bootlegger Ricardo Cortez shifting business models from bathtub hooch to the growth market of imitation pharmaceuticals - a scam that runs the gamut from knock-off toothpaste to a useless substitute for digitalis. (The film marked the last directorial effort of John Francis Dillon, who succumbed to, of all things, a fatal heart attack in July 1934.) One of the last Hollywood movies produced before the institution of the Production Code, The Big Shakedown climaxes with one of cinema's first acid bath demises, foreshadowing in its own indirect way an extreme of movie violence that would not again be permissible onscreen in America for at least thirty years. On the horizon for jobbing actress Bette Davis was a 1935 Academy Award nomination for Of Human Bondage (1934) and a 1936 Oscar for Dangerous (1935).
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Sam Engels and Niven Busch's story was entitled "Cut Rate." The film's working title was The Shakedown.
