Themes: Dishonor Among Thieves, Hired Killers, Woman In Jeopardy
Main Cast: Rochelle Hudson, Cesar Romero, Bruce Cabot, Edward Norris, Edward S. Brophy
Release Year: 1935
Country: US
Run Time: 76 minutes
Plot
Taking refuge from a rainstorm in a deserted farmhouse, young married couple Joe and Loretta Martin (Edward Norris and Rochelle Hudson) soon discover to their horror that the house is being used as a hideout for a gang of kidnappers. Gang leader Tobey (Cesar Romero), a comparatively reasonable sort, elects not to kill the couple because they have an ailing baby with them. But Tobey's psychotic henchman Pitch (Bruce Cabot) is not quite so sentimental, and awaits the opportunity to knock off all three "intruders." When the G-Men, tipped off by the serial numbers on some ransom money, manage to track down the crooks, Tobey is killed, leaving Loretta and her baby at the mercy of Pitch -- at least until she picks up a machine gun and mows him down! As brutal as it was possible to get under the newly strengthened Production Code, Show Them No Mercy (inspired by the real-life Weyerhauser kidnapping case) is an excellent entry in the "FBI cycle" of the mid-1930s. The film was remade in a western setting as Rawhide (1951). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A fine entry in the then popular G-Men cycle, Show Them No Mercy was an anomaly for 1935, the year of Warner Bros.' G-Men, a gangster drama that focused on the criminals and their victims rather than the heroism of law enforcement officers. It should come as no surprise, then, that the film, written by Public Enemy's Kubec Glasmon, came in from quite a bit attention from the powerful Production Code Administration. But after rearranging part of the story line, Show Them No Mercy was granted the code's all-important seal of approval. Not that the changes seem to have dulled the impact of this terse drama, in which Bruce Cabot, late of Let 'Em Have It!, once again plays a gangster boss on the edge. Although rarely mentioned among the stars of the genre, Cabot is particularly chilling because he generally eschews the hoary theatrics all too common to the genre's perhaps lesser efforts. According to the actor himself, he based his portrayal here on real-life mobster Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
