The Racket had been lost to us for decades upon decades. It was one of a handful of Oscar-nominated films that were literally unwatchable, as no one could locate a copy of them anywhere. Much like Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Won or those episodes of Doctor Who so thoughtlessly taped over by BBC flunkies, The Racket was a holy grail for enthusiasts of its field. Produced by Howard Hughes (of long fingernails, stockpiled urine and The Aviator fame) and banned in Chicago upon its release -- ‘cause it’s a gangster film, see -- only one print has ever been found, in the apparently copious files of the obsessive compulsive genius who funded it. The film was restored in 2004, and the only way I was able to see it at all in aid of this project is because it's occasionally shown on Turner Classic Movies and some kind soul recorded it digitally during a recent airing and uploaded it onto the internet.

How far we’ve come! In 1928, it was perfectly commonplace to mislay every copy in existence of an Oscar-nominated film. Now, not yet a century later, thanks to bit torrents and DVD mass production and cable TV, it’s doubtful we could completely erase all evidence of a movie even if we really wanted to. (And sometimes we really want to. Can we all agree that The Bounty Hunter simply has to go?)

So, to the film itself. For a start it’s another silent entry, and is cursed with the least appropriate and most intrusive score of any movie I have yet encountered. It begins with a violin-heavy cacophony giving us to understand that nefarious deeds are afoot -- as indeed they are! Shots are fired. Probition-era wiseguys threaten each other as some form of unspecified liquor is manufactured in a secret factory. There are men wearing checked, double-breasted suits with bowler hats! It’s all very exciting.

McQuigg and Scarsi. Theirs is a forbidden love.

But, wait, one of those wiseguys is a cop, one Captain James McQuigg (Thomas Meighan), as his monogrammed holster kindly informs us. His nemesis, Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) -- as identified by his ironic certificate from the Anti-Liquor League -- is our Bad Guy, a bootlegger who has decided on a hostile takeover of another bootlegger’s territory. He heads to the police station to warn “Mac” to stay out of it, and I’m pretty sure I once heard the marching band-esque background music to this confrontation at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Not long later, I am so bothered by the score (seriously, there’s this entire beautifully-set and shot scene of busy downtown Chicago, a tense stake-out that turns into a thrilling shoot-out, and I swear the music provided is a polka) that I try muting the sound completely, which gives me a whole new level of respect for the hearing impaired. Because as much as I was deploring the music, watching this silent movie completely silent was simply impossible. It felt like I was watching it in slow motion. Try it yourself sometime! You’ll see what I mean.

Anyway. In the midst of the polka-ed shoot-out, Scarsi’s smug and well-dressed underling Chick (Lucien Preval), whom I prefer to call Creepy Thin Man, is arrested, we cut to a new plot device -- a sozzled newspaperman who shows up repeatedly to make peculiar pronouncements and keep things moving -- and then we cut to the evil Scarsi presenting his younger brother Joe (George Stone) with a ring box on his birthday, much to that pencil-mustached young man’s delight. The box contains a signet ring, but if you weren’t familiar with man jewelry of the era, and didn’t know that these two men were related, you might easily be forgiven for thinking that 1920’s Chicago was way more liberal and rainbow-friendly than you’d previously imagined. (Especially when Scarsi the elder declares emphatically moments later: “No women! Women are poison to me!”)

This vaguely homoerotic scene is interrupted with the news that Creepy Thin Man has been taken in by the law, which Scarsi seems to think is awesome and promptly phones the police station, reminding his frenemy McQuigg of that night’s birthday party for Scarsi Jr.

“I’ll be there,” says McQuigg, looking sly.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” roars Scarsi (but silently), putting down the phone.

Wow, all this subtext is giving me a headache.

Digging for gold.

Later, the party is swinging, the gentlemen in tuxedoes, the ladies in spangles, the entertainment… odd. Two masked performers gambol bizarrely; one of them is the disguised form of torch singing club kitten Helen Hayes (Marie Provost), a bottle-blond vamp with a hate-on for Scarsi, and after seeing her hit on his younger brother/fiancé, the feeling is clearly mutual.

“You can get away with murder, but you can’t pull that stuff on me!” she yells, beautiful in her fury as he humiliates her in front of a large and apparently very easily amused crowd.

“Lay off this kid, you dirty little gold digger! He’s not in the racket, and he’s not going to be!” And then he pushes her away from him roughly, to the hilarity of all.

“He called me a gold digger. Well, I’ll dig. I’ll dig deep.” Helen confides in a nameless friend before returning to the stage to sing into -- seriously -- a megaphone, right up until she is taken onto the dance floor by Scarsi Jr. ’Attagirl, Helen!.

Soon McQuigg arrives, tears up Chick’s place card and informs his host the proto-Godfather that his man won’t be able to make it that evening. But, wait… who’s this? It’s Creepy Thin Man! Released, it seems, after a suitably large bribe was paid some lawmaker or another. ‘Cause, as we’re rapidly coming to understand, Scarsi OWNS THIS TOWN.

McQuigg smiles wryly, acknowledging having been outplayed.

“Alright, Nick,” he says, “that’s a horse on me.”

Huh? I mean, okay, I kinda get it from context, but huh? “A horse on me”? What a strange thing to say. And this was not the only piece of confusing 20’s vernacular with which this movie beset me, by the by. I had to read the title card twice when a doomed policeman later goes into a tirade against all crooks because they “banged” his old man. Of course, he meant “shot.” Unless 1920’s Chicago really was more liberal and rainbow-friendly than I had thought?

To return. The good Captain makes to leave, having been “horsed”, but the appearance of rival gangster Spike (Henry Sedley), whom Scarsi’s looking to topple, and a bevy of hard-faced goons stops him in his tracks. Oooh, it’s a showdown! (Accompanied by a piece of music to which I think Torvill and Dean ice danced at the 1984 Winter Olympics.) There’s a shot, the rival gangster dude lies dead, and Scarsi is well pleased and, despite all evidence to the contrary, in the clear, having paid off a judge.

“This is the last murder you’ll ever get away with in my district!” McQuigg says sternly. “I’m going to drive you out!”

Flat-faced, beetle-browed Scarsi just scoffs at this piece of bravado. “I’ve given you lots of chances -- but you’re just a dumb harp.” (Again… huh?) “So you’re going out!”

McQuigg is thence exiled out of the city to a station “In the country -- out to hell-and-gone” courtesy of the mobster’s friends in high places, and our friend the sozzled reporter and his even less interesting partner show up, looking for the scoop.

"Seriously, it's called the Omaha Bee!"

It is right around here that I start to lose interest in the various machinations of master criminals and the cops who love to hate them. I can’t even find it in me to wonder about Helen’s plans for young Joe, or even hope that sozzled reporter guy gets his scoop. Then a cute cub journalist fresh from “a month on the Omaha Bee” gets hazed and McQuigg doesn’t even have the heart to help him and I pretty much decide to wash my hands of the whole affair.

And there’s still more than half of the darned thing to go.

More stuff happens, of course. Funerals and fixed elections and faux engagements -- Scarsi Jr. tries to make it with Helen and gets involved in a high speed chase that leads to an injured bystander and a convenient stint in McQuigg’s outland station, subject to a little casual police brutality. In comes Helen who is inexplicably unhelpful… I so don’t understand this movie by this stage, and I no longer want to. Scarsi eventually gets his comeuppance, naturally enough, having killed a cop and then confessing to it, but by the time that comes around I simply don’t care. There is not a single person in this entire movie whose motivations, methods and morals I don’t question. Not even the Omaha Bee kid.

True, I’ve never been one for a gangster film. Indeed, I am almost as much of a novice in that regard as I am with silent movies, so The Racket is kind of a double whammy of ignorance and disinterest for me. Pretty much all of my 1920’s Chicago Mob knowledge comes from a couple of P. G. Wodehouse novels, P. N. Elrod's noir-y Vampire Files and Bugsy Malone (along with that episode of Sliders where they land in a San Francisco in which Prohibition hasn’t been repealed). I’ve never liked these kinds of movies because I don’t like all the casual violence and the ethical gray areas implicit in its prosecution -- which is why I also stay away from the genre’s more modern equivalents, gang films like Boyz in the Hood and dirty cop dramas like Training Day.

Bearing all this in mind, I was probably never destined to enjoy The Racket all that much, now that I think about it.

Not that the movie isn’t well done in a lot of ways. The set design is wonderful, the costuming top notch and it is very well shot and edited together. Some of the acting is kind of over the top, in that silent movie “See, look at me, I’m amused right now!” or “Check me out, I’m MAD at the moment!” mime-ish manner, but it is mostly inoffensive, and the expressive Marie Provost as wise-cracking Helen quite steals every scene she is in.

This movie easily could have been a talkie, and probably should have been. Admittedly, my experience of silent movies is limited to the few mentioned in this very column, but The Racket threw up so many dialogue-laden title cards it almost might as well have been a book. Unlike in Wings, where so much conversation could only be guessed at, The Racket gave us almost every word with painstaking precision. But just because you know what they’re saying does not mean you know what they’re saying (if you know what I’m saying). So much of the meaning behind most everyone’s utterances is often utterly obscure, and I’m not just talking about the now forgotten slang.

"His goose is cooked"; "That's the way the cookie crumbles."; "All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolu--"; "Shut up!"

Take this sample exchange, at the movie’s end:

HELEN: “So, it’s dog eat dog to the last ditch, eh, Captain?”

McQUIGG: “You can’t teach and old dog new tricks.”

HELEN: “You and me both, Policeman.”

What the hell is that all about? Are they having a cliché competition?

And then the movie ends on this bizarre note:

RANDOM COP: “What now, Captain?”

McQUIGG: Well, I’d like to get some sleep, but after I get through with the Coroner and the other public servants… it’ll be time to go to Mass.”

FADE TO BLACK. (As the marching band strikes up once more. Go, team!)

It’s certainly no “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, is it?

I didn’t entirely hate The Racket. It had a lot going for it, and there is a lot to admire in it. Having seen it, I can understand why it was nominated for an Oscar… but I can understand even more how it could so easily have gotten lost.

And, frankly, I’d have been more than happy had it stayed that way.

  -- Rachel Hyland