The Big Shakedown

Back in the days when stardom meant signing a seven-year contract, Bette Davis didn't have much choice but to play the wife of a struggling pharmacist, who gets mixed up with the mob, in this mellerdrama. Hubby Charles Farrell is conscripted by gangster Ricardo Cortez to make counterfeit products like tooth paste and face powder. But when Cortez demands cheap knock-offs of high-priced medication, lives are in danger...Bette's included. She plays the ingénue role surprisingly well without the tics and mannerisms which would mark (and sometimes mar) her later career. Tall, handsome Charles Farrell, on the other hand, couldn't act. To say that he had two expressions is putting it generously. Fortunately, Cortez as the suave hood behind the counterfeiting scheme takes up the slack and Glenda Farrell drops seductively by as a gun moll who knows too much. A pretty entertaining B movie made moreso by the youthful Bette Davis.