(Vier Leichen auf Abwegen [de])
USA 1938
d: Lloyd Bacon
Warner Home Video (Region 0 us)
sc: Earl Baldwin, Joseph Schrank (based on the play by Damon Runyon, Howard Lindsay)
c: Sid Hickox (b/w)
e: James Gibbon
pd: Max Parker
m: Adolph Deutsch, Howard Jackson, Heinz Roemheld (uncredited)
p: Samuel Bischoff (Warner Bros.-First National Pictures)
w: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly, Willard Parker, John Litel, Edward Brophy, Harold Huber, Eric Stanley, Paul Harvey, Bobby Jordan, Joe Downing, Margaret Hamilton, George E. Stone, Bert Hanlon
pr: 26 Feb 1938
rt: 85:06 min
dvd-rl: 18 Jul 2006
ar: 1.33:1 (4:3 Academy Ratio)
sd: English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono • Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
st: English, French, Spanish; CC
supp: Warner Bros. Pictures Tough Guys Collection
• Warner Night at the Movies 1938
• Theatrical Trailer for "The Dawn Patrol" (3:12 min)
• Newsreel (1:50 min)
• Merrie Melodies cartoon short "The Night Watchman" (7:08 min)
• Short "The Declaration of Independence" (17:13 min)
• Audio Commentary by film historian Robert Sklar
• New featurette "Prohibition Opens the Floodgates" (17:57 min)
• Theatrical trailer (4:00 min)
This broad, acidic black comedy allows Edward G Robinson the opportunity to spoof his tough guy persona, as a beer baron who goes straight when Prohibition ends, only to find his fortune rapidly dwindling because his ale is unpalatable. Both accomplices and rivals naturally take a dim view of things, especially when his daughter (Bryan) starts dating a state trooper (Parker); and dastardly schemes are hatched to frame or fix him for good (notably by way of a stash of dead bodies, which have to be carefully redistributed, then re-collected when they prove to have a reward on their heads). The pace rises with the body count in this amusing version of a Damon Runyon/Howard Lindsay farce. Remade with Broderick Crawford in 1952 as Stop, You're Killing Me.
— TCh, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
In this late-thirties black comedy, Edward G. Robinson relishes in a burlesque of the character he epitomized earlier in the decade, the Prohibition-era kingpin. The story, based on a Damon Runyon play, has a bootlegger trying to go straight in a post-Prohibition brewery business, hiring his former flunkies as department heads and salesmen. With his upwardly mobile wife and Paris-educated daughter as mortified witnesses, he is haunted at every turn by a quartet of mobster corpora delicti who seem bent on insinuating themselves into his domestic life.
— PFA
•••••
Though Robinson is probably best remembered for LITTLE CAESAR, this romp (along with the similar THE LITTLE GIANT) was a perfect vehicle for his comic talents. Robinson successfully spoofs his own image, yet balances out the comic performance with enough serious touches to make the character believable. The film, adapted from a failed play by Runyon and Lindsay, is delightfully Runyonesque in character and plot development. The cast give their characterizations some intriguing personal quirks, taking each crazy turn well in hand. The farce is nicely paced by Bacon's direction, giving the proceedings a genuine sense of fun. A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER was popular with both critics and filmgoers and was later remade as STOP, YOU'RE KILLING ME in 1952, with Broderick Crawford in the Robinson role. Robinson, in his autobiography All My Yesterdays, said of the film, "I had absolutely no fault to find with the script because it was beautifully constructed and written and it was very funny." An admirer of Runyon's work, Robinson claimed that the writer "was absolutely unlike the characters he invented; he was soft-spoken, reserved, and never once did he utter a Runyonism."
— TV MovieGuide
