CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.”
The Art Department at Warner Brothers-First National sure knew how to draw the crowds in. For the 1934 film Dark Hazard, they splashed the name of “Little Caesar” author W.R. Burnett on the ads and gave you a dynamic image of their resident tough guy Edward G. Robinson about to a deck a guy while some dame screams her head off and head-of and–bingo–you’ve got another gangster epic. Except that you don’t.
Subtitled “The Story of a Gambler,” Eddie plays what my dad would call “a gambling degenerate.” He no sooner wins forty grand at the track, than he drops it the faro table and has to bum ten dollars to get home on. That’s Jim “Buck” Tanner–what a guy! Now Robinson, script writer Brown Holmes and director Alfred E. Green could have played it for tragedy, but “Buck” isn’t really a bad guy. He’s actually kind of likeable. New in town and looking to rent a room he hooks up with a wannabe Social Register sort of family–the kind who have a statue of the Black jockey on their front lawn–but are now reduced to renting out their parlor. This is 1934 remember. “Buck” makes the mistake of falling hard for the daughter of the house, played as a polite climber by Genevieve Tobin. In doing so he spurns the advances of Glenda Farrell, a hard-drinking, tough-talking lady gambler and Tanner’s ideal soulmate.
The wife is determined to reform her man whether he wants reforming or not, but how do you reform a gambler when gambling is all he really knows and all he’s really good at? He strikes out as a respectable desk clerk at a second-rate Chicago hotel, and the guy who got him fired offers him a job with his outfit, overseeing a dog track in California. Here is where he meets the true love of his life–a coal-black greyhound named Dark Hazard. When the dog is injured and his owner plans to euthanize it, “Buck” buys him. That, plus an impending pregnancy, tears it for the missus, who takes all but $500 of his $20,000 bankroll and beats it back to the respectable life in Ohio. Well, she left him something, didn’t she? That shows that she comes from quality people.
Three years later, when the destitute “Buck” turns up at her door, with Dark Hazard in tow, she allows him to see his son and stay the night, back in the parlor while the dog sleeps outside, ex-champion racer or not. Realizing that his marriage is through, he takes one ceremonial swing at the town rich-boy, now courting the about-to-be-divorced Mrs. Tanner, thus justifying the film’s lurid poster art.
“Buck” hits the road with Dark Hazard and–here comes the Hollywood ending–manages to nurse the injured dog back into racing condition. Dark Hazard wins piles of dough for “Buck,” who re-unites with Farrell, who is savvy enough to grab Tanner’s winnings before he can hit the faro table–a happy ending to this Depression-era love story.
I can’t help but wonder what Burnett’s original novel was like. I suspect it was a good bit tougher and “racier” than what Warner Brothers made of it, but–hey–Give the Public What They Want. That’s the ticket!
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