Corsair (1931)

Aside from a rather silly underlying premiss, this makes for quite an entraining little thriller. Handsome, but wooden, Chester Morris is "John", a football-star graduate who arrives on Wall St. with a bit of a conscience. That isn't what his unscrupulous boss "Corning" (Emmett Corrigan), nor his rather grasping daughter want. Rather than compromise his sense of decency, he decides to beat them at their own game by diverting illicit liquor being smuggled into the country. Errol Flynn, he isn't - and the backdrop photography is poor, but the story moves along quite well with half decent efforts from Thelma Todd as the daughter ("Alison") and from Fred Kohler as the kingpin "Big John". The story is nicely circular, what goes around comes around - little jeopardy but some fun escapades and the opportunity for us to sit back and enjoy it's simplicity. Not a film anyone will remember, but an adequate way to kill 75 minutes.