This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Here's the premise: A sweet old lady, indignant that local merchants are victims of an extortion ring, gets together her own mob to fight fire with fire. And how does she get them? Well, the district attorney, who knows and respects her, orders several criminals to be good boys and do what she says. And how does she deploy them? Well, she orders one to go into a shop and beat up the extortionist. And what happens? It's HER thug who gets carried out on a stretcher (he's ok almost at once)! Hilarious! Fantasies and fairy tales may have magic elements, but they have to be grounded in reality. How likely is it that the DA would do this? Or that the extortionist would not do the thug permanent damage? Or use a knife or gun? Damon Runyon's stories were called fairy tales of Broadway, but in them gangsters do use guns, and their victims don't get up once they're down. This movie is offensively patronising in its assumption that its viewers will laugh at anything and never think about what they're watching. Lee Bowman is, as usual, charming, and the young Ida Lupino is beautiful, though she looks even sulkier than in her later, tough-girl roles. It's easy to see why and to sympathise, but that lovely, sensitive actress Fay Bainter fares worse, buried under a ton of rubber and makeup and stuck in this insulting sharp-tongued but sweet, doddery but clever little old lady role.

****SPOILERS**** It's when grandmotherly and bank president Hattie Leonard, Fay Baitner, is charged $2.00 instead of her usual weekly $1.75 fee for dry cleaning that she decides to investigate why all of a sudden her dry cleaning bill rose some 15%! This in 1939 when inflation was on the way down due to the economic downturn in prices & wages of the ravages Great 1930's Depression! Discovering from the person who's been doing and laundry & dry cleaning for the last 15 years Zambrogio, Henry Armetta, that there's a protection racket going on in the little town of Macklin City for years Hattie decides to take matters or the law into her own hands! And thus do the job that the city's Mayor Jones, Brandon Tynan. and the police refuse or can't do. Run the hoods running this protection racket out of town and behind bars!Hilarious crime comedy with Hattie and her cabbie and ex-con friend Frankie Fallon, Warren Hymer, organize a mob of their own to put an end to the laundry and dry cleaning racket in Macklin City. Not quite realizing what he's up against, the little old lady who lives in the big house up the hill, mobster George Watson, George Meeker, send his collectors like Harry the Lug, Harold Huber, out to shake down the local laundry and dry cleaning businesses in town. Harry the Lug instead f collecting protection money ends up getting kidnapped by Hattie's mob and by being threatened, when nothing else would work, with gulping down an entire bottle of yucky & smelly Castor Oil finally spilled the beans. Not only his boss George Watson but the boss of bosses of the entire dry cleaning and laundry protection operation the chief executive of the town of Macklin City the honorable Mayor Jones Himself!***SPOILERS**** With Hattie framed arrested and put behind bars on a phony kidnapping charge, against Harry the Lug, she in turn got the goods on Mayor Jones in having his pay off or protection money marked and put in his personal safety deposit box at her bank! Not realizing that he had unknowingly implicated himself in this city wide protection racket Mayor Jones ends up arrested and put behind bars as the movie comes to an end. That's not after in him being the chief justice officially marrying Hattie grandson Fred, Lee Bowman, and his fiancée Lila Thorne, Ida Lupino, before he's relives of his duties as mayor and driven to jail in a police paddy wagon.

As a fan of comedies from Hollywood's Golden Age, I've seen such classics as "Duck Soup,", "His Girl Friday," and "Bringing Up Baby" many, many times. Though I never tire of them, I often wonder if there are many unheralded gems still deep in Hollywood's vaults awaiting the light of day. For this reason alone, the invaluable cable television station Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is always worth visiting for a little prospecting. Today, I found a fair-sized gold nugget there: "The Lady and the Mob" (Columbia Pictures, 1939). Ever hear of it? I hadn't, and chances are, you haven't either. Ever since TCM gained access to Columbia's vaults, some interesting films started reaching the public again, like "Ladies in Retirement" (1941), a twisty suspense film with a superb performance from Ida Lupino. I mention Miss Lupino because she's second-billed in "The Lady & The Mob." Comedy was never a big part of her career, but she acquits herself quite well in the supporting role of Lila Thorne, fiancée of Fred Leonard (Lee Bowman) who sends her to meet and be approved by his mother, Hattie Leonard (Fay Bainter) who has a track record for scaring away prospective brides. What seems to be the set-up for a '30s Hollywood comedy of manners quickly shifts gears into another comedic sub-genre, the mob comedy, best typified by such films as "Brother Orchid" (1940) and "A Slight Case of Murder" (1938), two Warner Bros. light-hearted offerings that gave Edward G. Robinson a chance to spoof his tough guy image.After visiting her local cleaners to complain about a $2 bill, Hattie learns that the owner, Mr. Zambrogio (Henry Armetta) had to raise prices because a "protective association" is extorting $7 a week from him and others. Outraged after the mayor assures her that the matter will be remedied eventually sometime, she sends for Frankie O'Fallon (Warren Hymer), a reformed thief whom she met when he tried to steal her purse, to lend a hand. Framkie is quickly decked by Harry the Lug (Harold Huber), the racket collector prompting Hattie to order Frankie to recruit her own mob. Before long, we are introduced to Blinky Mack, Brains Logan, Bert the Beetle, Big Time Tim and The Canary (with a voice that sounds like Curly's from The Three Stooges, though it's not) and the laughs which were decent from the beginning start coming at you with the rapidity of a tommy gun.The film abounds in bright lines sch as when Hattie, correcting Frankie after he calls her "lady", rebukes him with: "My servants call me madam." Perplexed, Frankie comments, "Gee, that don't hardly sound respectable." I love the scene where the local hoods that Hattie has recruited stroll about her mansion looking at her artwork. Seeing a Gainsborough-like painting depicting a child on its mother's lap, one of them urges the others to "get a load of the ventriloquist here!" And wait 'til you see their armor-plated getaway car replete with smokescreen generator and dropping tacks, anticipating James Bond's Aston Martin car by a quarter of a century. In the lead role, Fay Bainter may appear an odd choice, here looking a lot like May Robson and sounding very much like Billie Burke, two actresses who may have seemed like more natural casting for such a dizzy society matron role. After all, Miss Bainter had established a reputation as a dramatic actress, having been nominated as Best Actress for "White Banners" and Best Supporting Actress for "Jezebel," (and winning for the latter role), both for Warner Bros. in 1938, the year before. To work for Columbia (then trying to fight off its "poverty row studio" image) in what was at 66 minutes, a B-movie, seemed to be a comedown. Whatever the circumstances -- I'd like to think it was simply someone recognizing a good role in a good script --she makes the film a ton of fun.About midway in, an interesting scene occurs that warrants special mention. After a horde of owners have come to her house, insisting she call off her campaign because the ensuing brawls between the two mobs are wrecking their cleaning stores, Hattie launches into a dramatic monologue about patriotism, quoting Robert G. Harper's "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." In quick succession, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Patrick Henry's most famous lines are also heard. Declaring that a real American will never tolerate a dictator, she likens Mr. Watson, the mid-level operator of the town's protection racket, to one who "doesn't believe in your rights." Don't let him take your America from you, she urges. Warner Bros. is often credited (and rightly so) with alerting the country to the dangers of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany with its exciting, "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" in 1939. That film was released May 6. "The Lady & The Mob", first in theaters nearly five weeks earlier on April 3, stole a bit of its thunder. Granted it was only one scene and its impact can hardly be compared to this other film. But I mention it to illustrate that Warner Bros. wasn't the only studio concerned about the Nazis that was willing to make a public statement at the risk of foreign revenues, even if Hitler was never directly named. Although you might think that Hattie's plea might stop the comedy cold, the words are so well-integrated into the plot that they don't kill the mood which is quickly flowing again. If you're a fan of gangster comedies, this film is well-worth your time thanks to a good script, several wonderful character actors at their peak, and a high-flying lead performance that will bring a smile to your face long after the movie's over. Rated 8 of 10.

"There's never been a run on this bank !" -- Hattie Leonard.That's one of the tasty little nuggets of comedy which gets tossed about, seemingly in a most haphazard manner, in this excellent and user-friendly "gangster comedy," from 1939. In a very real sense, the writers and the director of this film were seeking to do something that is always difficult and sometimes impossible ... which is ... to make a social satire that has more laughs than bites.Consider that "The Lady and the Mob" is a window on a time before our times, before the cruelties and barbarities of World War Two, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War and the never-ending Gulf War, burned away all pretense of innocence from what was once called "the American Dream." Consider that Faye Bainter's character, Hattie -- and she is delightful in the goofiest possible ways -- lampoons the stuffy, hypocritical matrons so often created in the posh comedies of the 1930s.To call this a feminist film would be entirely wrong, and yet the strength of the satire, and the plot, lies entirely in the hands of Faye Bainter and Ida Lupino. Indeed, Ms. Ida Lupino gets a plum in this second billing, a role as juicy and sweet as her character is tart with her tongue ! Wealthy Hattie Leonard owns a bank and has a conscience, something most average people who lived during the 1930s and those Depression years probably could not believe -- unless they saw it in a motion picture ! One only has to see "Stagecoach" with John Wayne, Claire Trevor and John Ford directing, to understand how deeply-felt the animosity of "regular folks" was, towards bankers. Both of these films were released in the early part of 1939 and they both tell a tale of truthfulness about how badly damaged people can become decent again, and what it means to be "a True American".Since there is every prospect that Turner Classic Movies will run this fine, funny, film again soon, it would be spoiling things to give away much of the satirical plot of this comedy. Faye Bainter's classic looks and poise are a salute to all that's ever been the best about the actresses of the United States, and Ida Lupino plays her role cleverly. It is a definite mark of natural ability, as Ms. Lupino -- who is quite gorgeous at twenty-five -- darts in and out of the scenes with Bainter and "her Mob". The character actors selected to play Hattie's "stumble bums" are simply hilarious -- unless the viewer happens to know absolutely nothing about the 1930s and American slang.Even then, their comedic posturing works really well and is simply visually entertaining. This is a great little gem of a movie and while it does not quite carry the social and satirical "punch" of Frank Capra's "Lady for a Day," from 1933, it is well worth viewing, and for capturing on the digital video recorder to have on a lazy, rainy afternoon. Eight stars for comedy, satire, and snappy jokes.