The Big Shakedown is a 1934 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 starring Charles Farrell

Charles Farrell

Charles Farrell was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor...

 and Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

 and directed by John Francis Dillon. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Rian James and Niven Busch

Niven Busch

Niven Busch was an American novelist and screenwriter of movies such as the acclaimed The Postman Always Rings Twice. His novels included Duel In the Sun and California Street...

 is based on the story Cut Rate by Busch and Samuel G. Engel

Samuel G. Engel

Samuel G. Engel was a screenwriter and film producer from the 1930s through the 1960s. He wrote and produced such films as My Darling Clementine , Sitting Pretty , The Frogmen , Night and the City , and Daddy Long Legs .Born in Woodridge, New York , Engel earned a degree in...

. The supporting cast includes Ricardo Cortez

Ricardo Cortez

Jacob Krantz , known by his stage name Ricardo Cortez, was an American film actor who began his career during the silent era.-Life and career:...

 and Glenda Farrell

Glenda Farrell

-Career:Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin...

.

Plot

The melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

tic plot of the Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 release centers on Jimmy Morrell and Norma Nelson, who plan to wed as soon as their neighborhood pharmacy

Pharmacy

Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...

 begins to show a profit. The opportunity arises when former bootlegger

Rum-running

Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...

 Dutch Barnes offers Jimmy a job duplicating name brand toothpaste

Toothpaste

Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush as an accessory to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it serves as an abrasive that aids in removing the dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing...

 and cosmetics

Cosmetics

Cosmetics are substances used to enhance the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care creams, lotions, powders, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, towelettes, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and...

 that can be made cheaply and then sold in the bottles and jars of reputable pharmaceutical companies at regular prices. When Dutch asks him to copy the formula for a popular brand of antiseptic

Antiseptic

Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...

, Jimmy refuses, claiming he's unable to get a key ingredient, but when Dutch offers him a bonus hefty enough to allow Jimmy to marry Norma, he agrees.

Dutch's ex-girlfriend Lily Duran, jealous over his attentions to another woman, notifies the antiseptic company about the deception, and is murdered by Dutch. Without their key witness, the company is forced to drop their lawsuit against Jimmy. Now beholden to Dutch, he is forced to make fake digitalis

Digitalis

Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials that are commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent reviews of phylogenetic research have placed it in the much enlarged family...

, which Norma is given during childbirth, prompting her to lose the baby.

Jimmy seeks vengeance against Dutch, but before he can achieve his goal Sheffner, who formulated the antiseptic Jimmy manufactured, shoots Dutch. Jimmy confesses everything to the district attorney

District attorney

In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 and is exonerated, allowing him and Norma to return to life as they once knew it.

Cast

• Charles Farrell
  Charles Farrell
  Charles Farrell was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor...
  
   as Jimmy Morrell
• Bette Davis
  Bette Davis
  Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
  
   as Norma Nelson
• Ricardo Cortez
  Ricardo Cortez
  Jacob Krantz , known by his stage name Ricardo Cortez, was an American film actor who began his career during the silent era.-Life and career:...
  
   as Dutch Barnes
• Glenda Farrell
  Glenda Farrell
  -Career:Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin...
  
   as Lily Duran
• Allen Jenkins
  Allen Jenkins
  Allen Jenkins was an American character actor of stage, screen and television.-Early life:He was born David Allen Curtis Jenkins in Staten Island, New York on April 9, 1900.-Career:...
  
   as Lefty
• Henry O'Neill
  Henry O'Neill
  Henry O'Neill was a film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:...
  
   as Sheffner

Reception

The New York Times said, "[The picture's] particular virtue . . . is that it is specific and believable in its description of the felonious behavior involved in the racket. Thus it maintains a moderate sum of interest and excitement in the face of a routine assortment of gang-film impedimenta."

TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

calls it an "overblown crime melodrama" and adds, "the material stretches believability at every plot turn."