Manhattan Melodrama

Manhattan Melodrama
Theatrical film poster
Directed by	W. S. Van Dyke
Produced by	David O. Selznick
Written by	Oliver H. P. Garrett Joseph L. Mankiewicz David Ogden Stewart (uncredited)
Story by	Arthur Caesar
Starring	Clark Gable William Powell Myrna Loy
Music by	William Axt
Cinematography	James Wong Howe
Edited by	Ben Lewis
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	May 4, 1934 (1934-05-04)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$355,000
Box office	$1,233,000

Manhattan Melodrama is a 1934 American pre-Code crime melodrama film, produced by MGM, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, and starring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. The movie also provided one of the earliest film roles for Mickey Rooney, who played Gable's character as a child. The film is based on a story by Arthur Caesar, who won the Academy Award for Best Story for this film. This was Myrna Loy and William Powell in their first of fourteen screen pairings.

Notorious criminal John Dillinger attended a showing of the film at Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. After leaving the theater, he was shot to death by federal agents. Myrna Loy was among those who expressed distaste at the studio's willingness to exploit this event for the financial benefit of the film. Scenes from Manhattan Melodrama, in addition to Dillinger's death, are depicted in the 2009 film Public Enemies..

On June 15, 1904, the ship General Slocum catches fire and sinks in New York's East River. Two boys, Blackie Gallagher (Mickey Rooney) and Jim Wade (Jimmy Butler), are rescued by a priest, Father Joe (Leo Carrillo), but are orphaned by the disaster. They are taken in by another survivor, Poppa Rosen (George Sidney), who lost his young son in the sinking. The boys live with Poppa Rosen for a short while; then Rosen, a Russian Jew, is trampled to death by a policeman's horse after he heckles Leon Trotsky at a Communist rally and a melee breaks out.