The Racketeer [Love’s Conquest ] *** (1929, Robert Armstrong, Carole Lombard, Roland Drew) – Classic Movie Review 7380

Director Howard Higgin’s 1929 Pre-Code love triangle crime melodrama The Racketeer (known as Love’s Conquest in the UK, where it was banned by the British Board of Film Censors and only passed in 1930 after being cut by seven minutes) tells the tale of criminals in Twenties New York City. It focuses on tough but romantically inclined mobster Mahlon Keane (Robert Armstrong) and broke ex-socialite Rhoda Philbrooke (Carole Lombard)’s attempts to help alcoholic concert violinist Tony Vaughan (Roland Drew).

With the story and screenplay by Paul Gangelin, and Lombard as star, interest is considerable, but, as an early talkie, dialogue is sparse and the film is very dated.

Hedda Hopper and Carole Lombard in The Racketeer (1929).

Gossip queen Hedda Hopper appears as Mrs Karen Lee. Also in the cast are Roland Drew as Tony Vaughan, Paul Hurst as Policeman Mehaffy, Kit Guard as Gus, Al Hill as Squid, Bobby Dunn as The Rat, Budd Fine as Bernie Weber, Jeanette Loff as Millie Chapman, John Loder as Jack Oakhurst, Winter Hall as Sam Chapman, Winifred Harris as Margaret Chapman, Robert Parrish as street urchin and Phillips Smalley as roulette player.

The Racketeer is available for free download at the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/Racketeer

As you can see, the star is billed below the title as Carol Lombard.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7380

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