Big Town Czar
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Arthur Lubin
Barton Maclane
Tom Brown
Eve Arden
Jack La Rue
Frank Jenks
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Columnist Ed Sullivan relates the sad story of the Daley family and how Phil Daley disgraced his proud but poor Irish parents and girlfriend Susan Warren when he decided to escape the squalor of the tenements through a life of crime. With his sidekick Sid Travis, Phil battles his way to the top of the crime world, becoming a leader of one of the racketeering gangs. Determined to insure that his younger brother Danny will lead an unblemished life, Phil offers to pay his college tuition, but Danny is so blinded by the glamour of his brother's life of crime that he quits school to join the racketeers. Becoming overly ambitious, Danny bullies young prize fighter Chuck Hardy into throwing a bout in which he is the odds on favorite. Danny's actions spark a gang war when Phil's rival, Mike Luger, who has bet heavily on Hardy, learns that the fight has been fixed and orders his gunmen to kill Phil. In the ensuing gunfight, Danny is killed and a shaken Phil turns to his parents and Susan for help. When Luger and his men follow him, Phil flees the city, leaving Sid in charge of the gang. Deciding to double cross Phil, Sid lures him into a trap where Luger and his gang await. Enraged, Phil blasts his way out, killing Luger in the process. Sentenced to die in the electric chair for Luger's murder, Phil confides to Sullivan that he has realized, too late, that crime does not pay.
Director
Arthur Lubin
Cast
Barton Maclane
Tom Brown
Eve Arden
Jack La Rue
Frank Jenks
Walter Woolf King
Oscar O'shea
Esther Dale
Horace Macmahon
Ed Sullivan
Jerry Marlowe
Gordon Jones
Irving Bacon
Frances Robinson
Raymond Parker
Oscar Polk
James Flavin
Clyde Dilson
Charles R. Moore
Walter Young
John Sheehan
Cully Richards
Tom Rutherford
Carleton Young
Roy Mason
Don Rowan
Alan Davis
Buster Phelps
Frank Melton
Martin Turner
Miki Morita
Jimmie Lucas
Heinie Conklin
Jenifer Gray
Donald Kirke
Crew
Elwood Bredell
Bernard B. Brown
Philip Cahn
William Fox
R. A. Gausman
Ken Goldsmith
Edmund Hartmann
Jack Otterson
Vaughn Paul
Charles Previn
Richard H. Riedel
Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
George Thomas Jr.
Vera West
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The title of well-known Broadway newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan's original story was "Czar of Broadway."
