Two observations on Little Caesar:
one: I’d forgotten the extent of Little Caesar‘s influence on The Godfather:
and two: watching Little Caesar, it’s easy to forget that Douglas Fairbanks was a big star: The Prince of Hollywood if not of Hollywood cinema, though a significant box office star throughout the early to mid ’30s; the only one I can think of who made films with Garbo, Hepburn, Crawford, Davis, & Dietrich. Yet, he not only seems callow in Little Caesar — he was very young –but physically overpowered by the diminutive Edward G. Robinson:
As we can see in some shots, Fairbanks was considerably taller (see below):
..and Robinson might have been sitting in 25 cushions in the previous screengrab…but there’s physical size and screen impact ;and on-screen Robinson is the one that blows everyone else away.
JA
