EDWARD G. ROBINSON’S portrayal of Caesar Enrico Bandello in the 1931 film Little Caesar helped create the movie gangster archetype. Writer Jason Fraley describes Little Caesar as introducing the antihero chasing a lawless American Dream. Based on W. R. Burnett’s 1929 novel of the same name, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the movie tells the story of a hoodlum who leaves behind small-town gas station robberies to join a big city criminal organization. Ambitious, cunning, and ruthless, he displaces crime bosses to become the head of the entire city’s underworld.
However—spoiler alert!—his reign as “Little Caesar” cannot last, because informers eventually provide the cops with the wherewithal to smash his mob. Left penniless and alone, Rico is cornered and shot by the police. As he dies, the destroyed gangster wails, “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”
That Little Caesar served as the model for the American gangster film is made all the more noteworthy by the way in which Rico is depicted, to the extent possible in this era, as ambiguously gay. Unlike his cohorts, he shows little interest in the opposite sex. When women are mentioned, he snarls contemptuously, “Women! Where do they get ya?”
Indeed, Little Caesar draws much of its tension from two overlapping love triangles, loosely defined. As a small-time hood, Rico’s crime partner is Joe (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who wants to leave crime behind for professional dancing. After finding a dancing job at the Bronze Peacock nightclub, Joe’s dancing partner Olga (Glenda Farrell) soon becomes his romantic partner. Critics have observed that Rico is jealous of Olga (“that dame”) and acts almost like a spurned lover. Although the official reason for Rico’s possessiveness is his fear that Joe will “squeal” on him if he leaves the syndicate, Rico’s interest in Joe is far stronger and more obsessive than would be expected of a business friendship. At a climactic moment of defeat and self-preservation, Rico threatens to shoot Joe, but he can’t do it. Tears fill Rico’s eyes as he aims the gun. After leaving Joe alive—knowing this might lead to his downfall—he bitterly comments: “That’s what I get for liking a guy too much.”
While Joe is the apex of the triangle tearing him between Rico and Olga, Rico is the apex of a second triangle in which criminal underling Otero competes with Joe for Rico’s affections. The feelings of Otero for Rico are even more explicitly romantic than those of Rico for Joe. In one scene, Rico reclines on a bed as an obsequious Otero climbs into bed with him, gazing deeply into his boss’s eyes. Otero often fawns over Rico, repeatedly complimenting the latter’s appearance. “You look great, boss,” he says, staring at him longingly.
Rico’s sexual ambiguity in the movie was not lost on novelist Burnett, who complained about it to the producers. This raises the question as to why director Mervyn LeRoy chose to portray Rico in this way. To be sure, Rico is anything but effeminate, a gangster through and through. Although he wears jewelry and takes care of his appearance, he is swaggeringly masculine to the core. After committing a murder, the brutal Rico warns his fellow hoodlums of dire consequences if anyone “turns yellow,” and growls: “My gun is going to speak its piece.”
The question remains why LeRoy would have injected this element into the film. Perhaps it’s because gay men were seen as “natural criminals.” After all, at the time the film was made (and for many years afterward), homosexual activity was a criminal offense in much of the U.S. Throwing in a whiff of homosexuality could only add to the overall aura of criminality: an extra dash of depravity. Alternatively, LeRoy might have believed that a homosexual would gravitate to crime as a way to strike out at a society that stigmatizes his sexuality.
Rico’s isolation from women points to another interpretation. Women have traditionally been seen as a civilizing influence on men, in whose absence men revert to savagery. Joe is attracted to Olga, who represents law-abiding respectability and traditional marriage. This narrative is reinforced by the fact that it is Olga who persuades Joe to turn against Rico and provide the police with the information needed to crush the gang. In contrast, Rico’s homosexuality cuts him off from women’s values and their ability to tame the savage beast, reducing him to an outlaw in the full sense of this term.
While the reasons for creating Rico as a gay character were steeped in homophobia and outdated gender narratives, there are ways in which the film—perhaps inadvertently—undercuts its own homophobia. The most emotionally powerful moment in Little Caesar may be the scene in which Rico points a gun at Joe but cannot shoot, that moment when we see the eyes of this brutal character fill with tears. Rico’s gaze, and his tears, acknowledge the possibility that such a thing as love between men is possible, that a man can be in love with another man. Thus even if the underlying motivation for this subtext was anti-gay, Little Caesar offers a fascinating study in the contradictions between the masks we wear and the desires we harbor.
Denise Noe is a writer whose work has been published in The Humanist, The Literary Hatchet, and other periodicals.
