Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Izzy Adkins The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

Hot 888 Mama . . . Truth that the "Class" of the Mar-a-Lago Set is indistinguishable from the Swampy Moral Miasma surrounding the most uncouth Mob Muscle Thugs. Long before Chauncey Gardener had any White House Aspirations, Warner's BROTHER ORCHID asked us "What Profiteth a Man to Rig the Electoral College, and Lose His Own Soul?" Shakespeare once blurted, "Get Thee to a Nunnery!" BROTHER ORCHID has to forego Flo before bestowing his last three C-Notes upon the scrub woman, so it would be no great shake for Don Juan Rump to swear off Melancholia prior to taking his Vow of Silence. He had a chance to do this in Rome a few weeks back with the dude on the soap, but apparently is holding out for an Engraved Invitation from the Dalai Lama. If Putin's Puppet does not ask his Geppetto to make him a Real Boy this week, it could mean that America's Mutinous Minority has been backing Captain Queeg all along--NOT Little Caesar. "Pizza Pizza" may be dandy," as Flo once said, "but string up the other like the guy in HARD CANDY!"

utgard14 Gangster Little John Sarto (Edward G. Robinson) retires from the racket to "get some class." After that flops he tries to reclaim his old mob, which is now run by Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart). After nearly being rubbed out and believing his girlfriend (Ann Sothern) set him up, Little John joins a monastery! Entertaining Warner Bros. gangster comedy is helped by fun dialogue and solid cast. Robinson, Bogart, and Sothern are all great. Support from the likes of Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins, Cecil Kellaway, and Donald Crisp. Doesn't launch into the monastery part of the film until about halfway through. It's a fairly routine gangster story for the first half. Although with this cast, fairly routine is still pretty enjoyable to watch.

blanche-2 Edward G. Robinson becomes "Brother Orchid" in this 1940 film directed by Lloyd Bacon and also starring Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sothern, Ralph Bellamy, and Allen Jenkins. Robinson plays a mobster, Johnny Sarto, who works protection. He quits the business, turning it over to his right hand man, Jack Buck (Bogart) and spends five years touring the world in search of class. He comes back home broke from bad investments (the Borgia's bed was made in Grand Rapids) and wants back in.Jack Buck, however, doesn't want to give up his position. When Johnny's airhead girlfriend Flo (Sothern) speaks with Jack about reconciling with Johnny, she reminds him that Johnny witnessed Jack murder someone. Jack pretends to go along with the reconciliation, but in reality, he plans on killing Johnny. Johnny escapes the hit men and, believing Flo set him up, realizes he has no one to turn to. He passes out in front of a monastery and winds up donning the monastic robe and raising flowers.Very funny and warm film with wonderful performances. Robinson always played comedy very seriously, making his sinister gangster seem even funnier here. Beautiful Ann Sothern is great as the ditsy girlfriend who loves Johnny but can't get a commitment out of him. Bogart is still portraying crooks at this point, and he does an excellent job as the dangerous Johnny Buck. Donald Woods and Cecil Kellaway are two of the monks Johnny encounters.Director Bacon did a lot of gangster films at Warners, and he really knew how to pace them.Very enjoyable.

bkoganbing 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.