If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Following in the footsteps of the legendary stage actor George Arliss, the powerful Paul Muni took over at Warner Brothers as the most distinguished male star on the lot after Arliss left in 1933. Like Arliss, Muni wasn't just a portrait of famous historical figures; he took his talents into comedy and romantic drama, always adding different dimensions to the characters he played. Back in a time before political correctness took over the ability for artists to play outside their own race, Muni took on a variety of unique parts, and in this film, he's playing a Hispanic man determined to become a successful attorney, and thanks to the male libido, almost ends up in the electric chair. The source of temptation is the alluring Bette Davis, the wife of Muni's portly boss, Eugene Palette. When Davis sees the opportunity to get rid of her husband, she takes it, nearly taking down the subject of her obsession in the meantime. Together, Muni and Davis are dynamic, with Palette giving a strong performance as the unfortunate sap. Margaret Lindsay plays the nicer lady Muni really loves. This has two major remakes, with George Raft and Gary Cooper taking on Muni's role, and Ida Lupino and Barbara Stanwyck equally exciting in the Davis role. But this being the original is the version worth seeing first, showing how standard melodrama can be made better thanks to brilliant performances.

Directed by Archie Mayo, this film was later remade, better, as They Drive By Night (1940). It's based on a Robert Lord story, and Henry O'Neill appears uncredited.Paul Muni plays Johnny, a poor Mexican working as a mechanic while he puts himself through law school. A rich socialite Dale (Margaret Lindsay) runs into his friend (Arthur Stone) Manuel's car, which becomes his first case. Johnny sues Dale in court but is ill- prepared, losing to her boyfriend Brook (Gavin Gordon). Though she offers to pay anyway, Brook stops her. So, Johnny hits him causing him to be disbarred.Johnny hits the road and finds his way to a gambling establishment run by Charlie (Eugene Palette), who hires him. As a hard worker, Johnny quickly becomes Charlie's partner, earning unwanted affections from his wife Marie (Bette Davis). Her attraction to Johnny is so great, Marie uses an automatic garage door mechanism to kill her husband with carbon monoxide one night when Charlie is drunk. She is able to convince everyone it was an accidental death. With the insurance money, Johnny builds a successful casino with silent partner Marie.But Marie isn't pleased with her and Johnny's platonic relationship, especially when Dale, with Brook in tow, shows up as a guest at their casino. When Johnny begins seeing Dale, who is merely towing with him though he fails to see it, Marie confesses the murder and its purpose. Johnny wants nothing to do with her, as he blindly pursues Dale. So, Marie tries to pin the murder of her husband on Johnny. Ms. Davis's acting ability is in full exhibition at the trial, and there is a bit of redemption concerning Lindsay's character too, as this sad parable comes to an end.

One thing bothers a lot about the Warner Brothers of this era was their beating to death of the gangster film genre. This isn't a gangster film, although I almost didn't watch it, since I thought it probably was. That would have been a shame, because it is a very interesting film.A second that bothers me is not the film, but so many of the reviews here on IMDb. Is the film racist, or is is portraying the reality of the time? I'm not sure...I wasn't born until 14 years after this film was made. And unless you're in your 80s, you weren't alive yet to know the tenor of race relations in the 1930s in L.A. Stop making so assumptions based on today's trends. My guess is that it's just portraying the reality of that era.One thing I like very much about this film is that quite a few scenes -- far more than you would see in most films of the era -- were filmed on-locations; very interesting! Here we have a young Latino fellow in Los Angeles who has graduated from night school for a degree in law, but then gets in a fight in the court room during his first case and is disbarred. He heads back south of the border and becomes a bouncer in a cheap casino owned by an American with a surprisingly young and attractive wife. The Latino fellow transforms the low-grade casino into a top notch nightclub and becomes a partner. But then, the lovely wife gets angry when she can't get an affair started with the young Latino, so she kills her husband and begins a slow descent into madness. When that still doesn't get the affair going, she accuses the Latino fellow of planning the murder, but she goes nuts on the stand and the case is thrown out of court. Meanwhile, the White woman he has fallen in love with rejects him due to his ethnicity, and during a quarrel she runs into the road and is hit by a car and is killed. The Latino fellow decides to return to his L.A. roots and sells his nightclub to endow a law school. Okay, it all works pretty well, but the ultimate message seems to be that Latinos in southern California can never really "make it". Of course, at that time, that may have been true.Paul Muni -- as the young Latino fellow -- is excellent here, and other than his most famous bio pic, this is the first film of his I have seen. You might think this was one of Bette Davis' earliest roles, but actually it was her 25th film...and a humdinger of a role for her! Margaret Lindsay is wonderful as the woman who ultimately spurns Muni. Eugene Palette is a hoot -- as usual -- in his role as the partner in the casino. Robert Barrat looks slightly out of place as the padre, but does nicely with the role. And, I should make mention of Soledad Jiminez, who plays Muni's mother; I can't say she was a wonderful actress, but she looked the part and played many such roles in her career.Highly recommended, this is a very interesting film, both plot-wise and in terms of cultural history.

This movie has most everything bad the other reviews claim, and that's why I like it. It's almost burlesque. Yes, Muni overacts (and gets the accent wrong, which is odd, since Muni was known for his scrupulous preparation). Even as the taciturn Juarez, Muni overacts his underacting. It may be his wonderful voice, but there's something about his persona that makes the emoting appealing. That said, I think Edward G. Robinson would have been better in the part. As for Bette Davis, for the whole movie, her character seems to be on or coming down from cocaine. There's a solo scene where she looks like someone who's just done a line, and you watch as the drug begins to work on her. Mad scenes were a Davis specialty and she gives one to Muni like she did to Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage, except here she's like someone screaming at her pusher who's cut her off. Of course, in the movie, the drug is lust.Anyway, I don't think the subject here is race so much as class. The moral of the story is the old one, that a step up is not necessarily a step for the better. Rich people can be stinkers, so why would you want to buy into them? Muni made another movie of this "city mouse, country mouse" fable, The Good Earth. Robinson made many, but unlike Robinson's characters, Muni's (except for Scarface) were able to escape in one piece.