The Racket

The Racket is a 1928 American silent crime film directed by Lewis Milestone and produced by Howard Hughes, in which an honest police captain battles a bootleg kingpin protected by corrupt politicians, judges, and police. It was produced by The Caddo Company and distributed by Paramount Pictures, premiered in New York on 30 June 1928, and was nominated for Outstanding Picture (Best Picture) at the first Academy Awards.^{1 • 2} Long believed lost, the film survives in a single copy found in Hughes's personal collection and was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.³

Production

Howard Hughes, who had just produced Milestone's comedy Two Arabian Knights (1927), bought the film rights to Cormack's play and put Milestone in charge of direction. Milestone cast Louis Wolheim, a former mathematics instructor, in the gangster role in place of Edward G. Robinson, who had appeared in the Broadway production.⁵ The scenario was written by Harry Behn and Del Andrews from Bartlett Cormack's adaptation of his own play, with cinematography by Tony Gaudio and art direction by Julian Fleming.² The sources disagree on the editing and intertitle credits: the AFI Catalog credits Eddie Adams as editor and Tom Miranda for the titles, while the Silent Era Progressive Silent Film List reverses them, crediting Tom Miranda as editor and Eddie Adams for the intertitles.^{2 • 1}

The film marked the feature film debut of G. Pat Collins, who reprised the role of patrolman Johnson that he had created on Broadway.⁴ Milestone makes a cameo appearance as a speakeasy doorman at about 18 minutes into the film, and Walter Brennan appears briefly as a man on the street in front of a shop window.^{6 • 2}

The play and its real-world references

Bartlett Cormack was a Chicago Daily News reporter and crime reporter before writing for films, and his play opened at the Ambassador Theatre in New York on 22 November 1927, running until March 1928 in 119 performances.^{2 • 6} Although the film never names its city, modern sources report that it was understood to be about Chicago: "Nick Scarsi" echoed the nickname of the gangster Al "Scarface" Capone (1899–1947), and "The Old Man," seen only briefly and from behind, referred to Chicago mayor William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson (1869–1944).²

The subject drew official hostility. The play was banned in Chicago and in Portland, Oregon, and the film likewise attracted censors: the New York censor board, claiming it would incite crime and corrupt public morals, demanded cuts before allowing it to be shown.² The TCM article by Brian Cady states that the film was banned in Chicago just as the play had been.⁵

Reception and legacy

The film opened to strong reviews. Variety called it "as nearly perfect a slice of screen entertainment as had run the gauntlet in months," and Film Daily called it "an improvement on the original" play; Variety also praised Tom Miranda's intertitles as "the most authentic set of titles that have graced an underworld picture to date."^{5 • 2} The newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated it for Best Picture, Production, at the first Academy Awards in 1929, where it lost to Wings; the UNLV collection also holds an honorable mention for distinctive achievement from the Academy dated 31 July 1928.^{2 • 7}

The Racket is regarded as a precursor of the classic gangster cycle of Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Hughes's Scarface (1932), and many scholars consider it one of the best early films of the gangster genre. Its depiction of cops and judges on a gangster's payroll was possible because it preceded the Production Code; later crime films could not portray corrupt officials so openly.^{2 • 8} When the Code's restrictions on political corruption were applied to the 1951 remake, changes had to be made to temper the cynicism of the original story.⁹

Survival and restoration

For decades the film was thought lost. A single copy was located in Howard Hughes's personal film collection after his death and preserved by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas film department, whose Howard Hughes Film Production Records also hold the film's production files, rental and earnings reports, and a story synopsis by Cormack.^{6 • 7} The Academy Film Archive restored the film in 2016 from elements provided by The Howard Hughes Corporation and UNLV's College of Fine Arts, and the restored version has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.^{3 • 4} In 2026 Flicker Alley released a new digital restoration based on 2K scans provided by the Academy Film Archive, on Blu-ray with two orchestral scores, by Neil Brand and by Robert Israel, as part of the set Howard Hughes in Hollywood, Volume One.¹⁰ The film is in the public domain in the United States.¹

References

1. The Racket (1928), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era
2. The Racket (1928), AFI Catalog of Feature Films
3. The Racket, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures program
4. The Racket (1928), AFI Catalog entry (history and credits)
5. Brian Cady, The Racket (1928), Turner Classic Movies
6. The Racket (1928), IMDb Trivia
7. The Racket sub-series, Howard Hughes Film Production Records, UNLV Special Collections
8. Scarface scholarship citing The Racket and the Production Code, CORE
9. Film censorship and the Production Code, Yale Law School open repository
10. Howard Hughes in Hollywood Volume One Blu-ray restoration, The Arts Shelf

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent genre and exploitation features

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

© 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI. Free to use with credit under the Edgepedia Community License. Developers: read Edgepedia by API or MCP. Embed a reference card.