gerrythree TCM had "The Hoodlum Saint" on August 8, 2016, the first of a series of movies starring Esther Williams. Williams was 24 when she co-starred in this movie and she looked great. Star William Powell looked like he was just earning a paycheck, he had the most script lines and this script was a disaster area, completely unreal. This movie had fine stars and character actors at every turn: James Gleason, Frank McHugh, Angela Lansbury, Rags Ragland. All try hard but who is really interested in a story that revolves in part on the story of Saint Dismas, the good thief in the New Testament who becomes the "hoodlum saint." Greenlighting movies like this turkey paved the way for MGM production head Louis B. Mayer's dismissal.Cliff Reid was the producer of this movie, his first and last for MGM. Reid had worked as a producer or assistant producer at RKO from 1934 to 1942, according to IMDb. If the movie was low budget, like RKO movies starring Lee Tracy, Reid was the producer. These RKO movies are mostly unwatchable, badly written and with bad production values. For a bigger budget movie like "Bringing Up Baby," Reid was the associate producer. Reid is the one who deserves all the blame for how bad "The Hoodlum Saint" is, it has a low budget script tagged to the high production values MGM gave its movies.Further, William Powell was miscast as the star, he sleep walked through most of the movie. You have Esther Williams full of vitality playing against a very dull William Powell. Producer Cliff Reid imbued this movie with "B" movie values. You know, MGM would have been better off making this movie starring Lee Tracy in William Powell's role as a former newspaperman who sells out at first to get rich on Wall Street before the crash.

mkilmer The war was not World War II, but rather, the Great War. Returning veterans were treated well, the plot line tells us, but they did not all return to their jobs. Such was the fate for one Terry O'Neil, a delightful role in the hands of William Powell.Always eager to help the friends he made as a reporter – yes, his sources were often hoodlums – he does that. The doors are slammed in his face, and he uses his supreme wit to make his fortunate. He uses religion – Catholicism and Saint Dismas (Patron of Thieves) – to get his hoodlum friends to leave him alone. So we the viewer are left with a nice guy who has changed into a driven man with plenty of money and no need whatsoever for faith.America changed on October 29, 1929, and so did Terry O'Neil. Anything else would be a spoiler, but it is a William Powell movie and Powell's characters were wicked smart and unwicked decent sorts.The love interest, and films have to have one of those, was played beautifully by a beauty: Esther Williams. O'Neil's dark side's love interest was played by Angela Lansbury, straight from Broadway with a voice to match her beauty.THE HOODLUM SAINT may, as has been suggested, have been better suited for '36 than for '46, but it plays well in '07 for those of us who love these films.

blanche-2 Everything is odd about "The Hoodlum Saint," a 1946 film starring William Powell, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury, Frank McHugh, and James Gleason. It's a film about a returning World War I veteran when people were returning from World War II; it has the look and feel of a '30s film about it. At 54, the wonderful Powell is a little old for the role of an ex-soldier, and his love interest is 24-year-old Esther Williams. Apparently Williams wrote in her autobiography that she thought it was ridiculous to be cast opposite someone so much older, and states that Powell had to have elaborate makeup and wear a girdle. My question is, did she have anything nice to say about anybody in her book? The last oddity, which couldn't have been predicted back then, is that now Angela Lansbury's dubbing sounds very strange indeed as audiences have become more familiar with her singing voice.All that being said, the story concerns a returning vet, a newspaper journalist, who has difficulty finding work. He crashes a wedding that has a lot of influential people attending. There he meets Williams and gets a job on another paper, only leaving it to join the very stockbroker he's been writing exposes about, deciding to go after the almighty dollar. This is all leading up to the stock market crash of 1929.The acting is uniformly excellent. Williams is absolutely stunning in her role, and Powell is his usual charming, fast-talking self, delivering his lines with a good deal of irony and a light touch. Lansbury plays a club singer/love interest for Powell who becomes more sophisticated as the story evolves. Her acting is wonderful and she looks better and more glamorous in each scene. James Gleason, Frank McHugh, and Rags Ragland play Powell's somewhat crooked buddies, and they're delightful.Powell is always worth watching, though this isn't his best.

wazzy-1 This was one of the finest Gentile movies with a superb cast of characters. I believe it rates up with "Bells of St Mary's" and other great classic movies of its type. Wm. Powell rates an Academy award nomination and Esther Williams demonstrates her finest acting, and is more beautiful than I have ever seen her. She equals and exceeds most actresses of her day. The story moves along very smoothly, with excellent dialog and is a natural for the great cast of characters like James Gleason. My hat is off to the writers and director. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to be truly entertained without the conflict and violent movie making of today. This is truly a MUST see.