1931 was a bumper crop year featuring up and coming movie stars (Cagney, Robinson, Tracy) who would become legends doing gangster turns, followed in 32 by Paul Muni in Scarface. While Robinson and Cagney scored in in Little Caser and Public Enemy respectively, Spencer Tracy in Quick Millions proved he was more at home with virtue than vice.
Truck driver with a sense of ambition, Bugs Raymond (Tracy) organizes drivers with some muscle and is soon running a sweet protection racket across the city. Working his way up the food chain he garners respectability and a desire to marry the upper crust daughter (Sarah Churchill) of his extorted, legitimate partner. When she rejects him he hatches an absurd plan to whisk her away, giving his former mob pals an opportunity to exploit his power.
Tracy simply is not up to the iconic mobster performances delivered by the aforementioned actors getting their starts. Too measured in his rage he lacks the operatic pretense of Rico, the natural smart alecky ways of Cagney, the disturbing incestuous lunacy of Muni to be absorbing and put spark into the picture. Margurite Churchill as the love interest also does the picture no favors with a flat performance while Sally Eilers as Daisy and George Raft as a triggerman give plus performances.
Directed by the supposedly talented but temperamental Rowland Brown and lensed by underrated Joe August, Millions displays some moments of fine mise en scene, but in total this is lack luster Spence, an actor more at home on the side of decency than immorality. More adept at hearing confessions than giving them.
Truck driver with a sense of ambition, Bugs Raymond (Tracy) organizes drivers with some muscle and is soon running a sweet protection racket across the city. Working his way up the food chain he garners respectability and a desire to marry the upper crust daughter (Sarah Churchill) of his extorted, legitimate partner. When she rejects him he hatches an absurd plan to whisk her away, giving his former mob pals an opportunity to exploit his power.
Tracy simply is not up to the iconic mobster performances delivered by the aforementioned actors getting their starts. Too measured in his rage he lacks the operatic pretense of Rico, the natural smart alecky ways of Cagney, the disturbing incestuous lunacy of Muni to be absorbing and put spark into the picture. Margurite Churchill as the love interest also does the picture no favors with a flat performance while Sally Eilers as Daisy and George Raft as a triggerman give plus performances.
Directed by the supposedly talented but temperamental Rowland Brown and lensed by underrated Joe August, Millions displays some moments of fine mise en scene, but in total this is lack luster Spence, an actor more at home on the side of decency than immorality. More adept at hearing confessions than giving them.