I Am The Law

Old Movie Reviews. This one is from 1939 by Peter Galway in The New Statesman. "I Am The Law" starring Edward G. Robinson.

The cosy code of Hollywood morality is again demonstrated by the latest films of Edward G. Robinson and Gary Cooper. Goodness and domesticity are now all the rage; you're simply not in it unless you posses a whimsical outlook, a cute white terrier, and an appreciation of the Big Simple Things of Life. Robinson who has so often delighted us with his suave villainy, is now a Law Professor with a passion for justice, a dislike of holidays, and a supposedly endearing habit of burning holes in his pockets with a lighted pipe. (As Worcestershire and Moscow well know, there is something about a pipe.) I Am The Law presents the unfamiliar spectacle of Robinson cleaning up a nest of tough folk in his home town, and makes quite an enjoyable specimen of the gangster movie. The plot, if a little too improbable towards the end, always remains ingenious, Wendy Barrie contributes an amusingly intelligent blond doll (school of Damon Runyon), and there is a lovely dog.