King of the Underworld

CinemaSerfJun 2022

3.0

When one of his boys is saved by a young doctor, gangster "Joe" (Humphrey Bogart) pays the man a visit and thanks him with $500 and a promise (threat?) of future work. It's at one such consultation that the police swoop, the young man is killed in the melee and his now widow, fellow doctor, "Carole" (Kay Francis) is suspected of complicity. Though acquitted in court, she is given three months to prove her innocence or face being struck off as a physician - and that means she must do a bit of detective work of her own. It's not the most plausible of stories this. The involvement of James Stevenson ("Bill") as a latter day wandering minstrel doesn't help on that front and the ending is really pretty daft, but Bogart adds a charming degree of (very mild) menace to his Napoleon-obsessed character and Kay Francis, though hardly challenged any of this, still has a star quality to bring to the proceedings. Not great, no - but an enjoyable enough hour of cinema.