Barbary Coast (1935)

Miriam Hopkins is Mary Rutledge, who sails from New York to San Francisco intending to marry Dan Morgan, owner of a fabulously rich Homestead Gully mine.

But she’s immediately greeted by startling news: Homestead Gully is no longer on the map. Neither is Dan Morgan.

Seems he lost his riches at Luis Chamalis’ roulette wheel in the Bella Donna, the biggest gambling house in the burgeoning city. Then Dan Morgan wound up dead.

Admitting she loved not Dan, but his riches, Mary decides to stay in San Francisco and grab some of that gold all the new arrivals are coveting.

She might be in luck, because white woman are a scarce commodity in San Francisco, and she’s no more set foot in the Bella Donna than she starts fielding proposals for marriage.

Chamalis takes one look at Mary and decides she’s going to be his. Oh, he isn’t looking for a wife. But he is in the market for a pretty companion, and someone new to run that roulette wheel.

Mary accepts his proposition and settles into the comfortable life she wanted, albeit with another man she doesn’t love.

Then she’s caught in a storm while horseback riding and winds up sharing a run-down cabin with Jim Carmichael.

He’s immediately smitten by her beauty. She’s smitten by the genteel charm of the poet prospector, who also happens to be from New York. In fact, he’s set to return after a successful year mining gold.

But he winds up at the Bella Donna. Then at the roulette wheel, shocked to discover it’s being run by the lovely women who had told him she was in San Francisco visiting relatives.

Carmichael is cheated just like Dan Morgan was. He’s forced to take a job at the Bella Donna to earn enough money for passage back to New York. His new boss is Luis Chamalis, a very jealous lover who’s searching for the man with whom Mary went riding.

Meanwhile, the residents of San Francisco are tiring of Chamalis’s cheating and thuggish ways.

Miriam Hopkins as Mary Rutledge, ready to embrace a new life as she arrives in San Francisco in Barbary Coast (1935)

Edward G. Robinson as Luis Chamalis, meeting Mary Rutledge, the woman he’ll nickname Swan in Barbary Coast (1935)

Review:

A well-done sorta Western from Howard Hawks that will certainly have viewers rooting for Mary and Jim to get out from under the thumb of the devious Luis Chamalis.

Brian Donlevy has a supporting role as Chamalis’s enforcer. Harry Carey is the man trying to bring law and order to San Francisco. And Frank Craven is the newsman who caves to Chamalis’s demands in order to stay in business.

But the best supporting performance comes from Walter Brennan, about 40 at the time, as Old Atrocity. He’s so ornery he threatens to dump Mary and newsman Cobb into the San Francisco Bay if they don’t pay double the promised price for a rowboat ride to the docks.

The film was based on a best-selling novel by the same name, though the Barbary Coast depicted in the book was apparently much more tawdry than the one shown on film. According to IMDb, Hopkins and Robinson were at odds during filming. She’s go on to appear in two more Westerns, “Virginia City” (1940) and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” (1952).

This marked the first full-length Western for Joel McCrea, who would be appearing almost exclusively in such films by the time his career ended.

Joel McCrea as Jim Carmichael, expressing dismay at parting with Mary Rutledge after a chance meeting in Barbary Coast (1935)

Walter Brennan as Old Atrocity, amazed at how it feels to do a good deed for someone in Barbary Coast (1935)

Directed by:
Howard Hawks

Cast:
Miriam Hopkins … Mary “Swan” Rutledge
Edward G. Robinson … Luis Chamalis
Joel McCrea … Jim Carmichael
Walter Brennan … Old Atrocity
Frank Craven … Col. Marcus Aurelius Cobb
Brian Donlevy … Knuckles Jacoby
Clyde Cook … Oakie
Harry Carey … Jed Slocum
Matt McHugh … Bronco
Donald Meek … Sawbuck McTavish
Roilio Lloyd … Wigham
J.M. Kerrigan … Judge Harper
Roger Gray … Sandy Ferguson

Runtime: 91 min.

Brian Donlevy as Knuckles Jacoby, the man who does dirty deeds for Bella Donna owner Luis Chamalis (Edward G. Robinson) in Barbary Coast (1935)

Frank Craven as Col. Marcus Aurelius Cobb, a newman forced to write nothing bad about Luis Chamalis in Barbary Coast (1935)

Memorable lines:

Harbor watchman: “Who are you?”
Ship’s captain: “The Flying Cloud. Two hundred and twenty days out of New York and 15 days trying to find your blasted harbor.”
Watchman: “Well, nobody asked you to come.”
Captain: “Do you have anything in this hog-end of the world except fog?”
Watchman: “Sure, we’ve got gold. Mountains of gold. You’re just in time. We’re all hump-backed carrying it around.”

Mary Rutledge, as The Flying Cloud docks: “”Listen. Listen to them. Men like to yell, don’t they? They imagine they’re millionaires already.”

Harry Carey as Jed Slocum, the man eager to bring law and order to a city Luis Chamalis rules in Barbary Coast (1935)

J.M. Kerrigan as Judge Harper, the drunk who always sides with Luis Chamalis in Barbary Coast (1935)

Mary Rutledge: “I like this fog. I like this new world. I like the noise of something happening. No, San Francisco’s no place for a bad loser. Man or woman. Dan Morgan was a bad loser. Well, I’m not. I’m staying. I’m tired of dreaming, Colonel Cobb. I’m staying and holding my hands out for gold — bright yellow gold.”

Luis Chamalis: “How do you like San Francisco?”
Mary Rutledge: “I think I’m going to like it very much.”
Chamalis: “Well, that’s fine. I own it.”

Old Atrocity: “You don’t think they call me Old Atrocity for nothing? Why if I told you half the atrocities I committed in my time, you’d keel over right where you are.”

Donald Meek as Sawbuck McTavish, one of the men cheated at Mary’s roulette wheel in Barbary Coast (1935)

Roger Gray as Sandy Ferguson, outraged over the way friend Sawbuck McTavish is cheated at the Bella Donna in Barbary Coast (1935)

Luis Chamalis: “He kissed you, didn’t he? And you kissed him back. Like you’ve never done to me.”
Mary Rutledge: “I wish I had. I wish I could tell you something that would make you howl and shoot.”
Chamalis: “I’ll do the shooting. But somebody else is going to do the howling.”

Old Atrocity, returning a bag of golddust he’d stolen from Jim Carmichael: “First decent thing I done in my whole black life. Sorta overwhelms me. I feel like a little wet kitten, reborn.”

Edward G. Robinson as Luis Chamalis, explaining his proposition to Mary Rutledge (Miriam Hopkins) in Barbary Coast (1935)

Joel McCrea as Jim Carmichael, shocked to find Mary Rutledge sitting behind the roulette wheel at the Bella Donna in Barbary Coast (1935)

Edward G. Robinson as Luis Chamalis, in a jealous rage over rumors than Mary Rutledge has been seeing someone else in Barbary Coast (1935)

Miriam Hopkins as Mary Rutledge, listening to Luis Chamalis threaten harm to any man she’s found with in Barbary Coast (1935)