“Larceny, Inc.” is a gangster-comedy-holiday film starring Edward G. Robinson as a prison convict who decides to go straight, but is continually tempted to return to a life of crime. Just before he is released from Sing Sing prison, he is already approached by former “associates” to rob a bank. He declines, and the comedy and drama proceed from there.
Director Lloyd Bacon (“Knute Rockne, All American” 1940) provided good production values for the movie, including hiring Everett Freeman to pen a respectable screenplay, adapted from the 1941 stage play “The Night Before Christmas” by Laura Perelman and S. J. Perelman.
The outstanding cast behind Robinson includes Warner Bros. stock players like Jane Wyman as his daughter and Broderick Crawford and Anthony Quinn as his “associates,” as well as Jack Carson, Edward Brophy, Harry Davenport, John Qualen, Barbara Jo Allen, Grant Mitchell, Emory Parnell, Kitty Kelly (not the famous author), and Jackie Gleason in one of his early roles as a soda shop clerk.
Larceny, Inc. (1942)
cinema
My Review
“Larceny, Inc.” is a gangster-comedy-holiday film starring Edward G. Robinson as a prison convict who decides to go straight, but is continually tempted to return to a life of crime. Just before he is released from Sing Sing prison, he is already approached by former “associates” to rob a bank. He declines, and the comedy and drama proceed from there.
Director Lloyd Bacon (“Knute Rockne, All American” 1940) provided good production values for the movie, including hiring Everett Freeman to pen a respectable screenplay, adapted from the 1941 stage play “The Night Before Christmas” by Laura Perelman and S. J. Perelman.
The outstanding cast behind Robinson includes Warner Bros. stock players like Jane Wyman as his daughter and Broderick Crawford and Anthony Quinn as his “associates,” as well as Jack Carson, Edward Brophy, Harry Davenport, John Qualen, Barbara Jo Allen, Grant Mitchell, Emory Parnell, Kitty Kelly (not the famous author), and Jackie Gleason in one of his early roles as a soda shop clerk.