(This article about The Gangster contains more spoilers.)
The Gangster is undoubtedly a low-budget film. If there had been a category called C film, The Gangster could be placed in it. The film starts with voice-over narration by Shubunka (played by Barry Sullivan). He’s at home, reminiscing about Neptune Beach, a fictitious amusement park and beach location in New York City. All the concessions are controlled by Shubunka, something he is very proud of, although he admits he had to fight his way, literally, to the top and stay there. Even now, there is always someone else in the gangster world who is willing to take him down.
Nick Jammey arrives at an ice cream parlor on Neptune Beach owned by Shubunka and run by Shorty. Jammey asks Shorty about how to find Shubunka. Someone has trashed the Bath Avenue location, and the people responsible want to talk to Shubunka. Shorty doesn’t know anything about Shubunka’s whereabouts, so Jammey calls him from a pay phone in the ice cream parlor.
Shubunka can’t meet with Jammey because he has an appointment. Jammey rightly guesses that Shubunka has a date with a showgirl. It seems Shubunka is letting his affection for this showgirl, Nancy Starr, get in the way of his illegal business activities, something Jammey tries to warn Shubunka about.
Frank Karty also needs to talk to Shubunka. Karty is already desperate, and he cannot find Shubunka or get in touch with him. He roughs up Shorty out of mounting frustration.
Shubunka goes to Nancy Starr’s dressing room to ask her for a date, but she puts him off. He follows Nancy on the subway and finds out that she is not going to her sister’s, as she claimed. She is meeting a Mr. Beaumont. When Shubunka shows up to confront Nancy, she tells him that Beaumont is a Broadway agent. He is still there when Beaumont finally shows up with his girlfriend. Shubunka apparently has no reason to doubt Nancy.
Shubunka returns to the ice cream parlor and intimidates Shorty, who is taking a lot of the grief for Shubunka’s jealousy and other people’s desperation. One of the cashiers, Dorothy, quits because she is afraid to work for Shubunka. Shubunka gives Dorothy his “coming-up-through-the-ranks” speech. The shot of the two of them talking in the ice cream parlor feels topsy turvy because of the black-and-white tiles on the ceiling. These tiles, which are usually on the floor, not the ceiling, seem to bear down on them and make Shubunka’s speech even more unsettling. Shubunka intimidates Dorothy and doesn’t succeed in changing her mind about him or about quitting.
In his first appearance in the film, Frank Karty came across as a bum looking for a handout, but he is really a certified public accountant (CPA). He has embezzled money from his bosses, his brothers-in-law, and needs money to pay them back. Shubunka refuses to give him any because he knows that Karty lost all the money gambling, and Karty doesn’t seem to have quit gambling—or drinking.
Cornell and his men are the ones responsible for trashing the Bath Avenue location. They threaten Jammey, who is forced to accept an invitation to lunch with Cornell et al. Cornell wants Jammey to work for him, but Jammey doesn’t want to betray Shubunka. Jammey is in a difficult spot: He runs Shubunka’s businesses and knows a lot about the daily operations and finances. He is valuable as a trusted employee, but he can also be blackmailed and used as a pawn.
Nancy and Shubunka go to the beach at Plum Point and pick out a rather isolated spot where they can be alone. Two of Cornell’s men show up and attack Shubunka. After they leave, Shubunka asks Nancy if she set the whole thing up, but she denies it. Viewers are in the same position as Shubunka by now. Is he being overly jealous and suspicious, or is he right to suspect that everyone, not just Cornell, is out to trick him out of his money?
Frank Karty kills Nick Jammey because of his desperate need for money. If Karty cannot get money directly from Shubunka, Jammey is the next logical person to ask or, in this case, to take it from. Karty is now in worse trouble because Cornell wanted Jammey to work for him, and he threatened to kill Shubunka if anything happened to Jammey. It’s likely that he won’t think twice about killing Karty.
Shubunka wants to leave town with Nancy, but she refuses to go. She betrays him and his intentions to his business/criminal rival Cornell. She tells Shubunka that she wanted to love him, but he kept pushing her away with his jealousy. Cornell doesn’t even bother to kill him because now he has nothing. Instead, Cornell asks him, “Whaddya know, Shubunka? Who’ve you got?”
Shubunka has nowhere to go. The only person left in the city who knows him is Dorothy, the former employee who hates him, but he goes to her apartment anyway. Dorothy tells Shubunka that Karty confessed to the police. It is now common knowledge that Nick Jammey is dead, murdered. Cornell will be furious, and even though he has no use for Shubunka, he will kill him anyway.
Shubunka’s sad story doesn’t follow Hollywood’s production code of the 1940s and 1950s, in which crime is not supposed to pay and criminals were expected to face the consequences on the silver screen. Crime does not pay, at least not for Shubunka and Nick Jammey. But Cornell is now in charge of all the Neptune Beach concessions and their profits. Crime pays for Cornell, at least.
Cornell is played by Sheldon Leonard, who would produce many sitcoms, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, in the 1960s. But here, he is pitch perfect as the menacing gangster. Leonard played the role of the bad guy in many films noir, and he is perfectly believable as Cornell, a man who uses violence to get what he wants—and succeeds at it.
The Gangster was produced by Frank King and Maurice King of King Brothers Productions. A feature on the DVD for the film Gorgo (which they also produced) describes the King brothers as the gangsters of the film industry. Wikipedia describes the King brothers’ involvement in gambling at a time when gambling was illegal in the United States and considered seedier than it is today. This probably is one explanation for it being a prominent theme in many films noir. Maybe The Gangster didn’t meet the Hollywood’s production code, but perhaps it was an exaggerated description of true life for the King Brothers.
November 25, 1947, release date • Directed by Gordon Wiles • Screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Dalton Trumbo • Based on the novel Low Company, by Daniel Fuchs • Music by Louis Gruenberg • Edited by Walter A. Thompson • Cinematography by Paul Ivano
Barry Sullivan as Shubunka • Belita as Nancy Starr • Joan Lorring as Dorothy, the cashier • Akim Tamiroff as Nick Jammey • Harry Morgan as Shorty • John Ireland as Karty • Sheldon Leonard as Cornell • Fifi D’Orsay as Mrs. Ostroleng • Virginia Christine as Mrs. Karty • Elisha Cook Jr. as Oval • Ted Hecht as Swain • Leif Erickson as Beaumont • Charles McGraw as Douglas • John Kellogg as Sterling • Shelley Winters as Hazel, the new cashier
Distributed by Allied Artists Productions, Inc. • Produced by King Brothers Productions
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