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Barbary Coast
List Price: $14.95Price: $2.09 You Save: $12.86 (86%)Prices subject to change.
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780792844570
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Original recording reissued, NTSC
ISBN: 0792844572
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Languages: English (Original Language), Analog
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release Date: April 04, 2000
Running Time: 90 minutes
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1935
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Editorial Review:
Although ranked below Howard Hawks's best films (and his best are as best as movies get), this atmospheric melodrama set in lawless San Francisco in gold-rush days has always been warmly embraced by repertory audiences. Miriam Hopkins is top-billed as Mary Rutledge, newly arrived by ship in a picturesque fog, only to learn that the fiancé she came to join has been taken suddenly dead. In short order, demure Eastern girl Mary has transformed herself into Swan, toast of the Barbary Coast and mistress of its highest-rolling gambler: Edward G. Robinson doing a ringleted 19th-century variant of his trademark gangster role. Eventually Joel McCrea, as a prospector with scant luck but a poetic streak, completes the requisite romantic triangle as ordained by screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Robinson was always a class act, and he brings a surprising, even moving, vulnerability to the role of a man with the power to have virtually anybody killed--but not to compel Swan to love him. The movie's other most memorable presence is Walter Brennan, stepping into character-actor stardom as a toothless wharf rat who tries--and hilariously fails--to live up to his own billing as "Old Atrocity." He'd have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor if they gave such things in 1935. They started the following year and he was the first winner--for another Hawks picture, Come and Get It. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Interesting Story and Quality Performances
Other reviewers have described this movie/product well -- leaving no need for me to add my 2 cents other than to agree heartily that this is a 4 to 5 star find.
Rating: - "Little Caesar of San Francisco"
Howard Hawks' 1935 production of BARBARY COAST is an enjoyable romantic adventure in the tradition of "San Francisco" and "In Old Chicago". Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson and Joel McCrea play out a stormy love triangle set against the lawless days of the San Francisco gold rush.
Into the bustling port of San Francisco arrives Mary Rutledge (Miriam Hopkins), out to stake her claim with the city's richest resident, to whom she's engaged. When it's revealed that he has been killed, ... Read More
Rating:  - Joel McCrea; need I say more?
All I have to say is this is one of THE most perfect films ever made! I mean, come on, how can you beat a movie that has all of the best main ingredients, ie.
~ Joel McCrea is all of his perfect glory!
~ Joel McCrea fawning over Percy Bysshe Shelley's writing in all of his perfect glory
~ A lovely period film with wonderful acting and actors!
~ Did I mention Joel McCrea? Oh, specially the line where he tells Miriam to read the book of Shelley and pretend he wrote it! Ooooooh, ... Read More
Rating: - barbary prose
This film is a real find not for the main actors but for the bit players. Its really entertaining and captures the 1849 city by the bay in all its glitter and mud. It's nicely paced and except for some shots that seem a tad redundent the fog hides the mystery of the love affair. Walter Brennan is super and plays the old sawdust with a moral conflict. I enjoyed the whole story and for 1935 it seemed was ahead of its time. Worth a rental or for the price above to be a keeper :)
Rating: - ADVENTURE ON THE CALIFORNIA COAST.
Miriam Hopkins plays beautiful Mary Rutledge who arrives in San Francisco in the 185O's to marry Dan Morgan - only to discover that he died mysteriously after losing his fortune to Louis Chamalis (Eddie Robinson), the powerful owner of the Bella Donna saloon. Mary works for Chamalis as a roulette operator: he falls for her, but she does not reciprocate his feelings. Then a handsome, well-bred Easterner named Jim Carmichael appears in the Bella Donna: Mary finds her man...Robinson's performance is not ... Read More
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