Mary Rutledge (Miriam Hopkins) arrives from the east, finds her fiancé dead, and goes to work for Louis Charnalis (Edward G. Robinson) at the roulette wheel of the Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in San Francisco in the 1850s.I liked that a character says that the Chinese are the "oldest civilization in the world", as it sort of foreshadows the statements about the Chinese in Hawks' "Come and Get It". While surely just a coincidence, this pro-Chinese attitude stood out for me.I also liked the use of the word "cuspidor", and hope I have some occasion to use it.What left me mixed was Robinson's gangster accent. He does a great accent, especially for a man who was not a native-born American. But do 1920s Chicago gangsters have the same accent as 1850s San Francisco gangsters? Robinson would have us thinking this is the case. I, for one, am not convinced.

Especially in the early decades of talkies, the rowdy Barbary coast of San Francisco was a popular story locale for Hollywood films. These often featured a self-made kingpin as the lead male and a young naive woman from the East, who becomes the star attraction of the kingpin's main business establishment, as the lead female. Some examples include "Frisco Kid", released the same year as this film, "San Francisco", released the next year, and the later Fox musical "Hello, Frisco, Hello". As kingpins go, Eddie Robinson's pugnacious, power-driven character: the colorful Luis Chamalis, is portrayed as an extreme version, claiming to own about everything and everybody worth owning in SF(no doubt a gross exaggeration).I'm very surprised that no one has noted the striking parallels between the plot and characters of this film with the later "The Sea Wolf", which again has Eddie Robinson hamming it up as a supertyrant, who knows his time as such is limited, but would rather go down with his ship than relinquish his all powerful position. In "The Sea Wolf", Ida Lupino serves as the equivalent of Miriam Hopkins(as Mary Rutledge) in the present film. Literary Alexander Knox and drifter John Garfield serve as a combo of the characters portrayed by Joel McCrea, Frank Craven and Harry Carry in the present film, who provide the most effective male resistance against the bully. Also, fog is a frequent feature of the outdoor scenes in both these B&W films.Eddie and Mariam together carry this film, both skilled in imparting great melodramatic intensity to their characters. In the first half of the film, Mariam's Mary('Swan' to Chamalis) appears to be the female equivalent of Chamalis's amoral hustler character. On the other hand, she appears to be the only person who can influence Chamalis to tone down his cruel and murderous deeds to maintain his status as the de facto boss of SF. Whereas Chamalis appears to be irredeemably evil, until the very end, when he knows his game is up, Mariam's character is eventually revealed as more complex. She can no longer stomach her role in cheating prospectors out of all their gold, and as the moll of a man as cruel and murderous as Chamalis. Thus, she eventually succumbs to the initially repulsed overtures of handsome, laconic, literary, native NYC prospector Jim Carmichael(Joel McCrea), who agrees to do menial jobs for Chamalis to earn a ticket back to NYC, after losing all his gold to Chamalis's fixed gambling wheel, hosted by Mary. Somehow, Jim detects a moral Mary underneath her facade as a cheating hustler. Whereas Mary initially mocks Jim's easy going poetic persona, she eventually accepts his offer to take her back to their native NYC. Naturally, Chamalis is opposed to this development.As is true in some other films, McCrea's character, who serves as the romantic lead, is not the lead male(a villain in this case), nor the main dramatic hero. True, he offers to provide Mary with an acceptable avenue of escape from Chamalis's world, but it's Jed Slocum(Harry Cary), as the leader of the vigilante committee, and Colonel Cobb(Frank Craven), as the newspaper owner-editor, who are the main heroes of the movement to destroy Chamalis's evil empire.Although Brian Donlevy, as Chamalis's chief bouncer and hatchet man:'Knuckles', doesn't have a great deal to say, this role catapulted his film career. A few years later, he would be McCrea's chief adversary in Cecil de Mille's epic western "Union Pacific". Charismatic Walter Brennan, as "Old Atrocity" is a significant player in Chamalis's operations, if he receives no respect. Besides charging outrageous sums to ferry new arrivals from ships to shore, he talks up Chamalis's establishment to prospectors.Apparently, he has a life-long history of criminal doings all over the US...Near the end of the film, 'Old Atrocity', Mary, and even Chamalis perform acts relating to Jim that offer a small measure of redemption for their evil doings. Knucles doesn't get a chance for redemption. The vigilante committee took care of him first, in a crackdown on Chamalis's empire.The background and very limited stage music is almost exclusively Stephen Foster standards, especially "Jeanne, with the Light Brown Hair". Foster composed most of his well -known songs from 1848-54. Only "Oh, Suzanna" was composed just in time for the '49ers. If this story takes place in 1850, "The Camptown Races", featured in one scene, would have been a current hit. "Jeanne" wasn't composed until 1854.

Director Howard Hawks rarely made misfires, even "Land Of The Pharaohs" qualified as interesting, but this hybrid Edward G. Robinson law and order saga about the wild and wooly California coast during the gold rush era of the 1850s is curiously lackluster. The movie belongs to Hopkins who shows up at the outset, but Robinson doesn't stroll in until a good quarter hour has passed. The naive hero--Joel McCrea--doesn't arrive for about a half-hour later and he makes a rather passive hero. Basically, "Barbary Coast" concerns a love trianble among ruthless underworld boss, the mail-order bride that goes to work for him, and the innocent drifter that she falls in love with much to the chagrin of the crime boss.As greedy Luis Chamalis, Robinson wears an ear ring, frilly shirts, and owns the biggest casino in San Francisco called the Bella Donna. He dispenses the law and order, but primarily it is disorder that he creates in the amoral town. Miriam Hopkins is Mary Rutledge and she has come on a square-rigged ship from New York to marry Dan Morgan, but she learns on her arrival that her fiancélost all his gold as well as his life at the Belle Donna gambling tables. Dan was a poor shot and poor shots do not live long in San Francisco. She refuses to leave town and winds up working the roulette wheel for Chamalis, the very same roulette wheel that brought about the death of her fiancé. Luis nicknames her Swan because she is as soft and desirable as a swan. Eventually, Chamalis demands love and attention from Mary, but she denies him these affections.One day Mary takes a horse and rides in the country, but she is caught in a soaking downpour and takes refuge in a cabin. As it turns out, the man in the cabin has just settled in is a Jim Carmichael (Joel McCrea) and he is just passing through, too. This young prospector has dug sacks of gold out of the earth and is heading into town. No sooner does Jim see Mary than he falls desperately in love with her. He stumbles into the Bella Donna and loses all his gold on the roulette wheel. Mary feels guilty because she has cheated Jim, just as her fiancé was cheated. At the same time, Luis--who rules the town--with the help of a cold-blooded killer, Knuckles (Brian Donley) suppresses the local newspaper editor Col. Marcus Aurelius Cobb (Frank Craven) from publishing derogatory stories about him.Things take a turn for the worst for Luis when Knuckles murders a miner Sawbuck McTavish (Donald Meek) and eye witnesses see him. Earlier, Luis got Knuckles out of a tight spot by calling in a favor from a drunken judge, but Knuckles is not so lucky this time around. Not only does he kill Sawbuck, but he also kills Cobb. The newly formed vigilante committee led by Jed Slocum (Harry Carey, Sr of ANGEL AND THE BADMAN) and his followers hang Knuckles on the spot and go after Luis. Meanwhile, Mary and Jim try to escape from the jealous Luis. Just as it appears that the hero and heroine are going to bite the dust, the vigilantes show up and prove the standard moral that crime does not pay and haul off Luis.There is nothing particularly outstanding about this Hawks movie. The dialogue by two Hawks collaboraters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur is nothing special and neither is this movie. Hopkins makes an unsympathetic heroine until she falls from fellow New Yorker Jim. Walter Brennan steals the show as Old Atrocity, a sneaker grifter, who is never up to anything good. The characters are not that compelling and neither is their predicaments. Robinson makes a strong villain, but he isn't strong enough to force Hopkins into loving him. Nothing about this well-photographed yarn is memorable and it ends up being a minor potboiler.

I wasn't expecting much when I watched this, but It's pretty good. It's set in San Francsico in 1849 during the gold rush. It's got a great cast like Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea, Harry Carey, Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan. It was also directed by Howard Hawks. Watch it if your a fan of the cast.