Baby Face Harrington Reviews

Butterworth's career was built on him being the consummate wimp, so it was totally unbelievable to see him in this gangster satire. This was made just after SCARFACE and others of that genre at Warner Bros. and MGM, honestly thinking that it couldn't top the experts, decided to have some fun with it. It's a brisk 65 minutes by Raoul Walsh but ultimately fails to convince. Butterworth is a clerk who tries to be the life of the party but fails. His boss fires him, and he has to cash two thousand dollars from a life insurance policy. He misplaces the money and then gets caught up with a gang of mobsters who take him as a hostage. Later, he reads that his wife is about to divorce him (can you believe they'd print that in the paper?), so he decides to hang himself. Just as he's about to do that, the chief gangster arrives. It's Pendleton and the two men recognize each other as having been childhood pals. The cops arrive, arrest everyone, and Butterworth and his wife are reunited. (Butterworth was a graduate attorney who attended Notre Dame and was a reluctant actor who eventually took to the stage after a brief career as a journalist. Although he appeared much older, he was only 50 when he was killed in a car crash.)