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Little Caesar
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OverviewAI-generated
Little Caesar is a 1931 American crime drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The movie features Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, and Sidney Blackmer in the cast. Hal B. Wallis and Darryl F. Zanuck produced the film, which was distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment and Netflix. The narrative is set in Chicago and was originally released in English.
The film has a runtime of 79 minutes and was produced in black-and-white. It was created by First National Pictures and Warner Bros. Entertainment, with a budget of 281,000. The screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh, and the music was composed by Ernö Rapée. It is categorized as a gangster film and film noir within the Pre-Code Hollywood movement.
Little Caesar received an IMDb rating of 7.1 from 15,990 votes and a TMDb average of 6.873 from 299 votes. It generated a revenue of 752,000. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. It has been referenced by 349 other encyclopedia articles.
Synthesized by Vinony from 40 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
6.9A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?
Cast
- Edward G. Robinson as Caesar Enrico 'Rico' Bandello aka 'Little Caesar'
- Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Joe Massara
- Glenda Farrell as Olga Stassoff
- William Collier Jr. as Tony Passa
- Sidney Blackmer as Big Boy
- Ralph Ince as Pete Montana
Themes
- robbery
- based on novel or book
- gangster
- crime boss
- rise and fall
- murder
- organized crime
- pre-code
- teetotaler
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Key facts
- Directed by
- Mervyn LeRoy
- Written by
- Francis Edward Faragoh , Robert N. Lee , Robert Lord (uncredited), Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
- Based on
- Little Caesar , 1929 novel, by W. R. Burnett
- Produced by
- Hal B. Wallis , Darryl F. Zanuck
- Starring
- Edward G. Robinson , Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , Glenda Farrell
- Cinematography
- Tony Gaudio
- Edited by
- Ray Curtiss
- Music by
- Ernö Rapée
- Production company
- First National Pictures
- Distributed by
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Release date
- January 9, 1931 ( 1931-01-09 )
- Running time
- 79 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $281,000
- Box office
- $752,000
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Part of
- National Film Registry
- Genre
- melodrama
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Movement
- Pre-Code Hollywood
- Director
- Mervyn LeRoy
- Screenwriter
- Francis Edward Faragoh
- Cast member
- William Collier Jr.
- Composer
- Ernö Rapée
- Producer
- Darryl F. Zanuck
- Production company
- Warner Bros. Entertainment
- Cinematographer
- Tony Gaudio
- Narrative location
- Chicago
- Duration
- 79
- FilmAffinity ID
- 821848
- Distribution format
- video on demand
- Image
- Caesar2.JPG
Show 11 more facts
- publication date
- 1931-03-21
- title
- Little Caesar
- nominated for
- Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
- Commons category
- Little Caesar (film)
- distributed by
- Netflix
- color
- black-and-white
- production designer
- Anton Grot
- capital cost
- 281000
- box office
- 752000
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- review score
- 92%
Sources (14)
via Wikidata · CC0
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Little Caesar is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Glenda Farrell. The film tells the story of a hoodlum who ascends the ranks of organized crime until he reaches its upper echelons.
The storyline was adapted from the novel of the same name by William R. Burnett. Little Caesar was Robinson's breakthrough role and immediately made him a major film star. The film is often listed as one of the first fully-fledged gangster films and continues to be well received by critics. The Library of Congress maintains a print. Due to the film being registered for copyright late in 1930, it entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Little Caesar” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.