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Excellent but underrated film

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

. . . sums up the plot of THE LITTLE GIANT. This flick demonstrates that while hoodlums such as LITTLE CAESAR, SCARFACE, PUBLIC ENEMY, and Bugs Fenner might snuff a few American thugs, the REAL gangsters wear suits, and mugs such as Charles Keating, Kenneth Lay, and Bernie Madoff are far worse than the Al Capones of this world as they murder the American Dream for thousands of honest Working People at a clip. The Donald Handley Cass Family of California represents the Fat Cat U.S. One Per Centers in THE LITTLE GIANT. Pop, Ma, Sonny, and Sissy all are thieving weasels rotten to the core, willing to prostitute themselves in every way imaginable just to obtain a thousand times their fair share of America's Bounty so that they can enjoy a few hours of creature comforts prior to their Eternity of Burning Down Below. The man who would kill Bugs Fenner three years after portraying THE LITTLE GIANT, Edward G. Robinson, plays the Bugs character himself here--Jim "Bugs" Ahearn, to be exact. When he finds out how irredeemably rancid the Rich really are, Bugs realizes that the only way to deal with them is to give them a foretaste of their Roasting to Come, by literally holding their feet to the fire. Hot-Cha-Cha, as Jimmy Durante would say!

Edward G. Robinson who would occasionally channel his gangster image into comedy roles does it for the first time here in The Little Giant. He plays a gangster from Chicago named James Ahern aka Bugs Ahern who has seen the end of Prohibition and has wisely salted away his money. Wanting a little class and wanting to mix with the upper crust he moves to Santa Barbara and starts mixing.Unfortunately he mixes with a family of society crooks father Berton Churchill, mother Louise Mackintosh, son Donald Dillaway. Worst of all he falls for Helen Vinson playing one of her patented bad girl roles who is a notorious flirt. Robinson has rented a mansion from down on her luck society girl Mary Astor who along with thousands of others had her savings wiped out by investing in the junk bonds that Churchill's firm sold. And now he's sold the firm to Robinson.No one makes a sucker out of Robinson and he settles the matter with some friends imported from back east who do it Chicago style. The real Bugs Moran would never have been this gentle as Robinson's old beer salesmen were in The Little Giant.Robinson got deserved kudos for essaying comedy and he would do it many times in his career. You have to see how he and his friends play polo Chicago style.A must for fans of Edward G. Robinson.

If anyone is looking for a great Mob Comedy, that really is a MOB Comedy, this is it. Spoilers: It is about a Bootlegger named Bugs Ahearn (Edward G. Robinson), and his second in commend Al Daniels(Russell Hopton), who decide to go straight after Prohibition ends, and move out to Beverly Hills and find out that the businessmen out there (Such as the Cass Family (Led by Father Donald Hadley (Barton Churchill), and not so sweet Polly (Helen Vinson)), who are far more crooked then the Mob ever was (They have a code of honor). The only person who knows the truth about how they are playing him as a sucker is Ruth Wayborn (Mary Astor), who has to act as his Personal Secretary, but really loves him. Mary knows the truth, because she was once rich, and they swindled her out of her fortune, so she has to rent out her mansion (Which Bugs did not know). When he finds out the truth about how gullible he was (They stuck him and many others with worthless stock certificates) he is so dejected, he gives a $15,000 wedding ring that he bought for Polly to a blind man, begging for money. One of the best scenes occurred in the DA's Office where he was told that not only was broke, but he would be going to jail for the swindle. The only way he could avoid this is get the money back. He asked the DA to let him make a call, and it went straight to the Boys in Chicago, and they could not wait to get back into action (Including boarding planes with Machine Guns). Not only did they got back all of the investors money plus interest, with heavy duty shakedowns (Including torture to a crook who refused to pay up), it was done in a way, that when the Mob took over the crooked investment company, with the assistance of Ruth (Who is good with numbers) they made sure it would be profitable for Bugs, his fellow mobsters, and the people who got their money back. The film ended with Robinson and Astor looking down from the mansion seeing gangsters on Polo Ponies, falling over themselves, and laughing about it. What is interesting is how Pre-Code it was: Including the torture scene, the DA not objecting to Robinson calling in the Mob (Showing gangsters as heroes would not be allowed a year later), Robinson referring to the rich as 'fags', and Al admitting he snorted Cocaine. Like the torture scene, no nos a year later. If you like Warner Bros Gangster films, and Robinson in particular, it should be a must see. Of course, it merits 10/10 Stars.

It is generally conceded that Edward G. Robinson (his memoirs tell us that the "G" was for "Gould", but it was a made-up name, so he just left it a "G") was one of the finest actors in Hollywood history, who repeatedly missed out on deserved "Oscar" recognition, although he did get a career "Oscar" shortly before his death in 1971. But most of the performances he is best recalled for ("Little Caesar", "Double Indemnity", "The Ten Commandments", "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet", "The Sea Wolf", "Key Largo", "The Woman In The Window", "All My Sons") were dramatic parts. In fact, many were outright villains. He did play comedy, and when the film was intelligent it was usually with good results. In particular his gangster comedies, "A Slight Case of Murder", "Larceny, Inc.", and "The Whole Town is Talking", show him to best effect. And there is this early comedy (I believe it was Robinson's first comic turn).Bugs Ahearn is like Remy Marko in "A Slight Case of Murder". Both are beer baron racketeers from the 1920s and early 1930s, who have made a pile, but face the end of "prohibition" by trying to turn legit - or as close to legit as possible. Remy (sticking to the New York Metropolitan area) decided to continue his brewery as a competitor with now other legitimate beer companies, not realizing (until it's almost too late) how dreadful his swill tastes. Bugs decides he's made enough, pulls up stakes and heads for the West Coast. He will now try to join the "beautiful people" in high society. But while Remy has his loyal gang members and his wife and daughter to support him, Bugs goes it alone. And is taken to the cleaners.I don't think that the view of the rich that appear in these films (and other gangster films of the 1930s) would be as dark again until the last ten years. Although some of the film noir movies showed a seedy side to the wealthy and prominent (notably in those films based on Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett novels), the films of the last decade made in the wake of scandals like EXXON, certainly made the bulk of the public question the rich. In 1933 the same serious questioning was going on. Economic heroes of the 1920s like Michael Meehan, Jesse Livermore, William C. Durant, Samuel Insull, and Richard Whitney became criminals or pariahs in the 1930s as investigations revealed their thefts or skirting of the laws. Even J.P. Morgan 2nd (an uncle of Whitney by marriage) was shown to have made a "mistake" in underestimating his income tax in the early 1930s. Comparatively speaking, gangsters like Remy or Bugs were more openly criminal than their white collar counterparts - who stole millions from small investors, and did not break laws to service a need for mild alcoholic beverages. So it was easy to side with Bugs or Remy when they face these secret villains - like the rest of the population did.Except for former wealthy woman Mary Astor, who finds she likes Bugs, all of the wealthy people in this film are parasites who see Bugs as dirt to use to get rid of worthless stock before they are left holding the bag. The choice of Burton Churchill as the head of the Cass family, as unctuous a villain in the 1930s as you could find, was perfect. His respectable demeanor hiding a wolf-like passion for money at the expense of the gullible - here Bugs, who is smitten by Churchill's equally villainous daughter Helen Vinson.At the end of "A Slight Case Of Murder" Remy found out the error of his beastly beer brew, and snookered the white collared villains (bankers) into giving his loan an extension while he found a new beer formula that worked. Here the ending is more satisfactory, with Bugs asking his pals from Chicago to assist him, and forcing Churchill and his confederates to buy back the worthless stock. The scenes of this were very satisfying to depression America audiences.