Brother Orchid (1940)

Directed by Lloyd Bacon with a screenplay by Earl Baldwin from a story by Richard Connell this crime comedy drama features Edward G. Robinson in the title role aka Little John T. ‘Johnny’ Sarto a gang leader who decides to retire then tries to find class by traveling. After losing his money abroad he returns 5 years later to find things have changed in his organization now run by Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart) who no longer needs or wants him. But his faithful moll Florence ‘Flo’ Addams (Ann Sothern) and trusty companion Willie ‘The Knife’ Corson (Allen Jenkins) who’d been hiding out in an asylum (run by Granville Bates) try to help Johnny get back on top before Jack all but eliminates him using out of town gangsters (including Paul Guilfoyle). Badly injured Johnny escapes to a monastery where Brother Wren (Charles D. Brown) Brother Superior (Donald Crisp) and Brother Goodwin (Cecil Kellaway) among others help him to recover and show him the way of kindness he’d never seen previously. After six months in the monastery Johnny sees a newspaper that says his gal Flo is about to marry Clarence P. Fletcher (Ralph Bellamy) a hick rancher that had been hanging around Flo while Johnny was in Europe. This causes Johnny to return to the city to confront her; he’d thought wrongly that she had set him up for Jack Buck. When he finds out differently and the fact that the brothers from the monastery can’t sell their flowers without paying protection money to Buck’s gang Johnny uses Clarence and some of his Texas (including John Ridgely) and Montana buddies to settle the score. Notable in this film in the end (movie’s stereotypical third wheel) Ralph Bellamy gets the girl! Harlan Briggs appears uncredited as a business owner who’s forced to pay graft. Frank Faylen appears uncredited as a hotel desk clerk.

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