Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

"Johnny Hawks" (Chester Morris ) is an extremely talented football star at a college out west who all the young ladies adore--to include one particularly rich and attractive heiress named "Alison Corning" (Thelma Todd). Yet even so, she thinks he is terribly unsophisticated and because of that asks her father "Steve" (Emmett Corrigan) to give him a job in a corporate office at the New York Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, he is fired a year later because he refuses to lower his ethical standards. Needless to say, this angers Johnny and because of that he decides to set out on his own and prove to Steve the error of his ways. To do this he comes up with a plan to hijack ships carrying illegal alcohol and reselling it in a legal manner--to Alison's father. But his profession is a dangerous one and it's only a matter of time before his luck runs out--and Alison just happens to be there when it does. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought that this was an incredibly interesting film from a unique period in American history. Admittedly, the script was rather weak and the camera work could have used some improvement. But even so this film still manages to entertain quite nicely and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

Corsair (from 1931) is a real moldie-oldie, that, in spite of its obvious age and creakiness, still manages to be fairly entertaining, in the long run.This 83-year-old Comedy/Romance/Adventure story tells the roundabout tale of how dashing, college, football hero, Johnny Hawkes, meets cheeky, spoilt, heiress, Alison Corning.Before long Hawkes finds himself captain of the Corsair (a sleek, high-speed gunboat).Imminent danger lurks everywhere once Hawkes and his crew begin dealing with ruthless, modern-day pirates involved in big-time liquor smuggling.With its story set mainly in the West Indies, Corsair (at 72 minutes) certainly had its fair share of high-seas action, violence and double-crosses.This fast-paced story starred blond beauty, Thelma Todd (murdered at 29) and early-talkies heart-throb, Chester Morris (suicide at 69).

That's how the villain in this film describes his gang of cut-throats, and 80 years later, there's even more modern methods to piracy, so that analyzation is quite a coincidence. Here is the story of a college football hero (Chester Morris) who is so angered by his greedily powerful boss that he plots revenge on him and lands a twist on the powerful Wall Street broker (Emmett Corrigan) that might have you howling in delight, especially considering that 80 years later, the same things are still happening on Wall Street with even more diabolical results.Morris can't help but be attracted to the Wall Street broker's spoiled ninny of a daughter (Thelma Todd, billed as as Alison Loyd), a selfish sort who, like Carmen, gets more intrigued by the man every time he rejects her or treats her worse. She's engaged to an effeminate dapper dan, and at one point, even asks him if he's really her fiancée or just experimenting. So of course, this is pre-code, and has some genuinely delicious pre-code references as it deals with the piracy of bootlegging. The Walter Matthau of the 1930's, Ned Sparks, is on hand as Morris's grouchy sidekick, with Mayo Methot as his moll whom Sparks orders to make love to a rather ugly pirate nicknamed "Fish Face" (Frank Rice). The future Mrs. Bogart has a truly amazing moment when she follows her lover's orders with shocking results.Then there's Frank McHugh, on loan from Warner Brothers and giving his signature "ha ha ha" laugh, as Morris's classmate who sticks by him until the end. The film is interesting because it takes the bootlegging angle away from street gangsters, replacing them with pirates. There is an ocean-set battle between the two different gangs of bootleggers which provides much excitement and gives a modern twist on the old pirate tradition of walking the plank.

This film is available on Alpha Video in a decent print and is most noteworthy as the final film of Roland West's career. He made three sound films, all with Chester Morris in the lead. This is also the least popular and in some ways the least artistic of the three. An additional behind-the-scenes interest of this film, is that Thelma Todd is the female lead, billed as "Alison Loyd" in an obvious attempt to distinguish her as a dramatic actress. She is fine in the film, but has a rather skimpy part.The plot involves a young man who has just graduated from college who begins to work on Wall Street after being teased by Todd's character and clashes with his boss, who is her father. To prove his point and to get revenge, he becomes a modern day pirate, stealing liquor from illegal shipments at sea. Chester Morris is excellent in the role of John Hawkes, the young man.Some great sharp camera angles and one very dark, sinister scene involving "Fish Face" and a female, Sophie, do not entirely make up for the fact that this film does not advance the techniques of film-making as ALIBI and THE BAT WHISPERS did. West's combination of editing with sound effects and music in ALIBI were a revelation in early 1929. And with THE BAT WHISPERS, he took miniature work to a new level in sound films with his 'bat's eye' camera moves through the cities and towns. CORSAIR seems rather routine in comparison.That is not to say this is not a good little gangster film. Fred Kohler is solid as the bootlegger, Big John, and Ned Sparks along with Mayo Methot are great in support. The editing is crisp and the overall film has the dark touches you would expect from Roland West. It still holds up as one of the more effective gangster films of the early 1930s.