Plight Of Ex-Cons at Warners

Must George Raft Go On Wearing Invisible Stripes? (1940)

Call this what might have happened if Paul Muni's fugitive had been set free in '33 to face slammed employer doors, except Warners had during interim backed off social crusading for action aspect of cons back in civie circulation. Society's intolerance gets a mention, but plays second to banks robbed, gats firing, and worst of thuggery plunged off window ledges. Kids could by 1939 look to gang subjects for as much mayhem as westerns delivered, no coincidence that crime yarns at WB often got remade in the saddle (High Sierra/Colorado Territory a best-known instance). George Raft is put-upon lead, wanting to go straight except society won't let him. Stir-mate Humphrey Bogart is less sanguine, thus it's him we find interesting, if not sympathetic. HB was getting more and more texture into hoods he played, career leap of High Sierra an inevitable one. William Holden is Raft's kid brother tempted toward wrong; and how this actor improved with age and experience. Could anyone on Invisible Stripes have imagined that Bill would be a biggest of lead man draws in the 50's? (well, for that matter, could they have pictured Bogart as WB's top romantic name within three short years?)