The City Gone Wild, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a terse crime drama -- with gangsters, gangs, and
gunfights, in which a criminal lawyer turns prosecutor to avenge the
death of a friend. As she did in The Street of Forgotten Men, Louise Brooks plays a moll, this time the deliciously named Snuggles Joy, the “gunman’s honey.”
More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.
The “gangster film” (as we know it today) more-or-less began with Paramount’s Underworld (1927). Though there were earlier crime films, the Joseph von Sternberg directed Underworld set the tone for many of the genre films which followed, namely Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932).
With the surprising success of Underworld, Paramount quickly put another gangster film into production, namely The City Gone Wild.
The film was a vehicle for leading man Thomas Meighan, who in 1927 saw
his star begining to fade. To boost his career, Paramount paired Meighan
with a topical story “ripped from the headlines,” a first rate
director, and popular supporting actors. Also assigned to The City Gone Wild were individuals who worked on Underworld, namely writer Charles Furthman, cinematographer Bert Glennon, and tough-guy actor Fred Kohler.
The two films, not surprisingly, were sometimes compared. Intoning the slang of the time, Variety wrote, “The gang stuff is a la Underworld — machine guns and plenty tough. The two main yeggs each have a moll
carrying their gat in the pocketbook. Very authentic in these little
details ….”
Many critics focused on the acting and actors. The noted critic Ward M. Marsh of the Cleveland Plain Dealer
stated, ” . . . pitting her against crookdom’s love of Louise Brooks
brings out the worst in all of us. On the credit side is Miss Brooks and
also Fred Kohler in a role paralleling his Mulligan in Underworld. They do excellent work.” The San Antonio Express
echoed Marsh, “Although Meighan is featured in the cast, he has his
co-stars, Louise Brooks, one of Paramount’s niftiest, and Fred Kohler,
remembered for his great crook work in Rough Riders and Underworld.”
Critics noticed Brooks’ hard-boiled character, and the edge she brought to the role. Radie Harris of the New York Morning Telegraph wrote,
“Louise Brooks is in the cast and that is something to grow ecstatic
about. Christened with the preposterous name of Snuggles Joy, she is the
most entrancing crook that ever pulled a Holt. No wonder the city went
wild.”
“Another distinct ornament of the cast is Louise Brooks, who lends
considerable vividness to her portrait of a lady of the underworld. In
fact, she gives so good an interpretation of the part that Marietta
Millner, supposedly the feminine lead, actually relapses into only
secondary importance,” wrote Gordon Hillman of the Boston Daily Advertiser.
Brooks was so good that she out shown Millner, who had appeared earlier in the year with Meighan in the Cruze directed film We’re All Gamblers.
“Louise Brooks, who plays the crook’s girl, is better looking, more
attractive and a better actress than Marietta Millner, the district
attorney’s jeune fille, and in real life Tommy probably would have
preferred her to Marietta,” wrote Stanley Orne in the Portland Oregonian. “Louise
Brooks, the pert flapper, completely shadows the more important role
allotted to Marietta Millner, and the ‘girl of Gunner Gallagher’ brief
as her part is, is a far more intriguing character than the society girl
of Miss Millner,” added Leona Pollack of the Omaha World Herald.
Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took
place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, Canada,* China, Dutch
Guiana (Suriname), Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New
Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom** (England, Isle
of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). The film was
occasionally shown in the United States as
City Gone Wild (and at least once in Scotland under the title
A City Gone Wild). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title
A Cidade que Enlouqueceu (Portuguese-language press).
Elsewhere, The City Gone Wild was shown under the title The City Gone Mad and La ciudad del mal (Argentina); Der Verbrecherkönig von Chicago (Austria); La cité maudite (Belgium, in French) and De Vervloekte Stad (Belgium, in Dutch); A cidade buliçosa (Brazil); La ciudad del mal (Chile); La ciudad del mal (Costa Rica); Mesto uplynulý divoký (Czechoslovakia); Storhyens Svøbe and Storstadens Svøbe! (Denmark); Het Kwaad eener Wereldstad (Dutch East Indies – Indonesia); La Ville Maudite (Egypt); La Ville Maudite (France); Gonosztevők királya (Hungary); 狂乱街 or Kyōran-gai (Japan); Die Gottin der Sunde (Latvia); La onda del crimen (Mexico); Boeven en Burgers and Het Zondagskindand Het Kwaad Eener Wereldstad (The Netherlands***); Piraci Wielkiego Miasta (Poland); A Cidade Ruidosa (Portugal); Gonosztevok kiralya (Romania); La ciudad del mal (Spain); and La Cité Maudite (Switzerland).
* Except in Quebec, where the film was banned due to “too much shooting.”
** When the film was shown in The United Kingdom, it was restricted to adults only.
*** When the film was shown in The Netherlands in 1929-1930 and again in
1934, audiences were limited to those 18 years and older.
SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:
— Thomas Meighan, the star of the film, was Louise Brooks’
“uncle-in-law.” (Meighan was married to Frances Ring, a Broadway stage
actress and the sister of the popular entertainer Blanche Ring. Director
Eddie Sutherland — Brooks’ husband at the time, was the nephew of both
Meighan, as Sutherland’s mother, Julie, was a sister of Blanche and
Frances Ring.)
— Meighan was involved in two of the more sensational happenings of
the silent era. In 1916, he was the sole witness to Jack Pickford and
Olive Thomas’ secretive wedding. And in 1923, Meighan put up a large
chunk of the bail money, and with the help of June Mathis and George
Melford, got Rudolph Valentino out of jail after he was charged with
bigamy.
— In the mid-1920s, Meighan became interested in Florida real estate
after talking with his brother, who was a realtor. In 1925, Meighan
bought property in Ocala, Florida (where scenes for the Eddie
Sutherland-directed It’s the Old Army Game were shot). In 1927,
he built a home in New Port Richey, Florida. It was there that he spent
his winters and helped support a local movie theater, the Meighan Theatre, which was named in his honor. The Meighan Theatre opened July 1, 1926, with a showing of the Meighan movie The New Klondike,
a film set against the backdrop of the Florida land boom of the 1920s.
Today, the renamed Richey Suncoast Theater is home to the annual Thomas
Meighan film festival.
— Brooks never learned to drive an automobile. According to the
actress, a double was employed when her character was needed to speed
away in a car.
More about The City Gone Wild can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its The City Gone Wild (filmography page).
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas
Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com).
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