Brother Orchid (1940)

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Richard Connell (story)
Earl Baldwin (writer)

Release Date:

8 June 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

We'd like youse to meet Brother Orchid!

Plot:

When retired racket boss John Sarto tries to reclaim his place and former friends try to kill him, he finds solace in a monastery and reinvents himself as a pious monk.

Plot Keywords:

Monastery | Monk | Zinnia | Cattleman | Haircut

US TV Schedule:

Wed. Dec. 16

9:45 AM

TCM

Cast

Edward G. Robinson	...	Little John T. 'Johnny' Sarto
Ann Sothern	...	Florence 'Flo' Addams
Humphrey Bogart	...	Jack Buck
Donald Crisp	...	Brother Superior
Ralph Bellamy	...	Clarence P. Fletcher
Allen Jenkins	...	Willie 'The Knife' Corson
Charles D. Brown	...	Brother Wren
Cecil Kellaway	...	Brother Goodwin
Morgan Conway	...	Philadelphia Powell
Richard Lane	...	Mugsy O'Day
Paul Guilfoyle	...	Red Martin
John Ridgely	...	Texas Pearson
Joseph Crehan	...	Brother MacEwen
Wilfred Lucas	...	Brother MacDonald
Tom Tyler	...	Curley Matthews

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #6203)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Of the five films that Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart made together, this is the only one in which neither is killed.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: When Edward G. Robinson returns to Ann Sothern's former rooming house and the landlady tell him she's moved, the boom mic is visible in the door's glass panel.

Quotes:

Flo Addams: [referring to the travel stickers she's putting inside his trunks] Look, Johnny, don't it look elegant?
Little Johnny Sarto: Yeah, it's got class all right. Look, you dumb cluck, you got it pasted on the inside.
Flo Addams: Sure, it gets scratched on the outside. Anybody's smart enough to know that!
Little Johnny Sarto: Flo, sometimes you got me guessin' whether you're even a nitwit.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Footsteps in the Dark (1941)

Soundtrack:

My Little Buckaroo

Searching For Class

Brother Orchid is one strange movie that could have been a lot better. I've a feeling some key scenes were left on the cutting room floor and the writers could not have made their minds up about Ann Sothern's character.

Pretty standard stuff for Warner Brothers at first. Edward G. Robinson is a gang leader who runs a protection racket, but he's getting bored with it and just up and quits and leaves the whole shebang to his number two guy Humphrey Bogart. He takes his bundle and tours the world in search of 'class'.

Robinson's his usual tough guy, but what a fathead as well. He should have insisted on Ann Sothern going with him, did he really think she wasn't going to stray, especially with rich western rancher Ralph Bellamy panting after her. And of course Humphrey Bogart was simply going to step aside and let him resume after he told everyone he was through. As Bugs Bunny would say, what a maroon.

So when Robinson puts together a new mob and starts warring on Bogart, he shouldn't have been surprised when Bogart takes him for that last ride. And when Sothern is the one who sets him up, what's there to say.

That's the first half, the second half deals with a group of monks who find a half dead Robinson who wandered to their door and they nurse him back to health. Naturally he's grateful to Donald Crisp and the rest of the brothers. And Robinson gets a way to show that gratitude in the end.

Someone really screwed up though with Ann Sothern's character. We're first made to think she's pulling the doublecross of all time. And then later we're supposed to think she was duped by Bogart as well. I'm still trying to figure it out. It was one incredibly bad piece of writing.

Robinson and Bogart are always great when they get together. This was the last of four films they did at Warner Brothers where Robinson was the good guy. When they did their last joint film, Key Largo they had changed places in the firmament of shimmering stars. Bogey of course was the good guy in that classic.

Brother Orchid is the weakest of the five films that Robinson and Bogart did together, but the fans of both men will probably like it.