LCEGR

I'm a half an hour into Little Caesar, and I'm inspired to send it kisses and kudos.  There is something genuinely maniacal about Edward G. Robinson's homicidal little Rico...

A number of years ago I tracked down the book Little Caesar on Ebay, paid $25 or so.  Like Tom Costain's Black Rose, the movie had made me wonder about the book.  My recollection is that Burnett's book had pretty much followed the same story line as the movie.  Rico dies of course, and I think the same line ends the flick and the book.  Ah, memory often fails...  But there is something beyond eerie about EGR's performance.  I always admired him in his other movies; I think he was always on the  savvy side;  but well, Little Caesar is really someone suprahuman on a supraevil level, and yet he evokes some pathetic pathos of pathetic humanity.

There is something else about this movie;  there is an innocent stupidity to the characters.  It is slightly gothic; with characters trapped in a universe of dust and diamonds.  It's as if the film makers weren't aware how much the world might change in just a year or two;  AMC's preface to the movie indicates it was pulled from distribution a few/couple years after release, and was off the air until the year I was born:  1953.