Product Description
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Warner Gangsters Collection Volume 3 (DVD)
PICTURE SNATCHER (1933): An admirably tough B-picture enlivened
by an energetic James Cagney performance, Picture Snatcher stars
Cagney as Danny Kean, a former gangster who has decided to go
straight after a stretch in the big house. Danny has fallen for
Patricia (Patricia Ellis), the daughter of the cop who put him
away (Robert Emmett O'Connor). Dad isn't convinced that Danny has
left his life of crime behind him, and he isn't too impressed
with his new career taking pictures for a sleazy tabloid
newspaper. Between getting a lurid photo of a fireman in front of
a burning building (where his wife and her lover met their e)
and a daring of a woman being executed (based an actual
incident when a New York Daily News photographer got a photo of
Ruth Snyder in the electric chair), Danny's work is selling
papers but hardly making Officer O'Connor think his daughter is
in good hands (especially since he was in charge of press
security for the execution). Short, sweet and sassy, Picture
Snatcher is the sort of gutsy fare Warner Bros. did best in the
1930's; Ralph Bellamy turns in a great supporting performance as
Danny's boozy editor LADY KILLER (1933): Based on the novel by
Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter stars Alan Arkin
as John Singer, who is deaf. Singer moves from a small town in
order to be close to his institutionalized deaf and mentally
impaired friend Antonapoulos (Chuck McCann). Singer rents a room
with a family whose her, Mr. Kelly (Biff McGuire), is unable
to earn a living due to a serious injury. His teen-aged daughter
Mick (Sondra Locke, in her film debut) is at first resentful of
Singer's presence, but he ingratiates himself by introducing her
to classical music (which he can "feel," if not hear). Singer
likewise tries to brighten the lives of such unfortunates as
alcoholic Blount (Stacy Keach Jr., also making his first film
appearance), dying black doctor Copeland (Percy Rodriguez), and
Copeland's poverty-stricken daughter (Cicely Tyson). SMART MONEY
(1931):Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney were teamed for the
only time in their careers in Smart Money. Robinson has the
larger part as a small-town barber who fancies himself a big-time
gambler. He travels to the Big City in the company of his younger
brother Cagney, who wants to make sure that Robinson isn't
fleeced by the high-rollers. Unfortunately Robinson has a
weakness for beautiful blondes, most of whom take him for all his
money or betray him in some other manner. The cops aren't keen on
Robinson's gambling activities, but they can pin nothing on him
until he accidentally kills Cagney in a fight. The incident
results in a jail term for manslaughter, and a more sober-sided
outlook on life for the formerly flamboyant Robinson. Watch
closely in the first reel of Smart Money for an unbilled
appearance by Boris Karloffas a dope pusher. BLACK LEGION (1937):
Factory worker Frank Taylor believes that he has missed out on a
deserved promotion when it is instead given to a Polish
immigrant. Angry and looking for a scapegoat, he is an ideal mark
for the Black Legion, an underground group who want to get rid of
immigrants and racial minorities through violent means. Frank
joins the Legion, and with his new friends, he dons black robes
and drives the Polish family from their home. His achieved,
Frank gets his job, but soon the Legion begins to take up more of
his time and money, and turns his character darker and darker. He
leaves his wife, begins to drink heavily, and soon is on a
downward spiral. MAYOR OF HELL (1933): Five members of a teen-age
gang, including leader Jimmy Smith, are sent to the State
Reformatory, presided over by the melodramatically callous
Thompson. Soon, Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy
Commissioner as a political favor, arrives complete with hip
flask and blonde. Gargan falls for activist nurse Dorothy and,
inspired by her, takes over the administration to run the place
on radical principles. But Thompson, to conceal his years of
graft, needs a quick way to discredit Gargan. BROTHER ORCHID
(1940): A gangster escapes an attempt on his life by rival
mobsters, and hides out in a monastery. He pretends that he is
interested in becoming a monk so that the Brothers will let him
stay while he plots his revenge. However, the kindness of the
monks gradually changes him and he resolves to turn over a new
leaf and reject his violent past.
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The third volume of the Warner Gangsters Collection can be
heartily endorsed--just so you emphasize the "Warner" and go
light on the "Gangsters." Warner Bros. was the feistiest studio
in 1930s Hollywood and these movies exemplify its street savvy,
proletarian gutsiness, and drive. Warners was also home to the
classic gangster cycle, from Little Caesar and The Public Enemy
through The Roaring Twenties (all included in Volume 1)--but none
of the six films in Volume 3 bears more than a tangential
connection to that cycle. Yes, every picture boasts one or more
of Warner Bros.' "Murderers Row" stars: Edward G. Robinson
toplines in two of the half-dozen films, Humphrey Bogart is
featured in two, and James Cagney skitters through no fewer than
four. And there's lashings of lawbreaking, raffishness, and tough
talk--albeit a lamentable shortage of tommy s. But Brother
Orchid is a gangster spoof, the Cagney vehicles feature scalawags
rather than mobsters, and the "gang" in Black Legion, although
dangerous and despicable, has nothing to do with organized crime.
The best movies of the bunch fall farthest from the gangster
family tree. Picture Snatcher (1933) is exemplary early Cagney,
77 hard-charging minutes with the favorite son of the Lower East
Side as a b ex-con determined to go straight. How straight is
a delicate question, since his job is scoring sensational photos
for a raunchy tabloid. Picture Snatcher was made before the
Production Code cast its puritanical shadow over Hollywood, and
the script features two memorably morbid sequences--Cagney's
debut as a literal picture snatcher, and the snapping of a
clandestine prison-death-house photo--as well as abundant
rtunities for risqué byplay, gallows humor, and freewheeling
amorality. Lloyd Bacon (soon to direct Cagney in Footlight
Parade) makes yeoman work of it all, even getting away with
scenes in the newspaper's restroom, and staging a last-reel
shootout ferocious enough to be worthy of a real gangster movie.
Humphrey Bogart wasn't yet a star when he appeared in Black
Legion (1937), but among his preHigh Sierra assignments at
Warners, here's a rare one in which he doesn't play second or
third fiddle to Robinson, Cagney, and/or Pat O'Brien. It's a
surprisingly powerful social-consciousness fable, in the
muckraking tradition of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Bogart
plays a working-class family man with his eye on promotion to
factory foreman; when the job goes instead to a co-worker with a
foreign-sounding name, Bogart's character--basically a decent
guy--gets drawn into a secret, Ku Klux Klanlike organization
espousing "America for Americans" and ready to stomp anyone
deemed less than "real 100-percent American." (Such groups
weren't exactly rare at the time, as the commentary track
details--nor are their sentiments unfamiliar today.) Robert
Lord's original screen story was O nominated, and the
screenplay is careful to make Bogart's actions understandable and
also to create a whole community of characters affected by the
Black Legion's atrocities. The finale is uncompromising, with a
last like a fist to the chest. Archie Mayo directed;
Bogart's fellow name-below-the-title players include Erin
O'Brien-Moore (impressive as his wife), Dick Foran, Joe Sawyer,
and future star Ann Sheridan in her first Warners film.
Edward G. Robinson spent a lot of his Warner years resisting
Little Caesar typecasting, and Smart Money (1931) is a
fascinating case in point. Although the story of "Nick the
Barber" recalls elements of Robinson's starmaking hit, the actor
insisted on script modifications so that Nick, a compulsive
gambler, emerges as a sympathetic character--and a ally soft
touch where women are concerned. His itinerary takes him from
small-town barbershop with an after-hours game in the back to
operating his own swank casino in the big city, but he never
comes off as a criminal except by prissy legal technicality.
Directed by Alfred E. Green, the movie marks the sole occasion of
Robinson and Cagney working together. Really, it's Robinson's
picture--though Jimmy the Gent outshines him in a classic scene
where they discuss a woman's attributes ... in mime.
In Lloyd Bacon's Brother Orchid (1940), it's Bogart who's
relegated to supporting status while Robinson plays "Little John"
Sarto, a comic variant of guess-who who decides to retire as mob
boss and pursue "class" by collecting art in Europe (an inside
joke on Robinson's real-life standing as art connoisseur?). After
blowing his fortune, Sarto attempts to recl his old job, which
his former lieutenant (Bogart) isn't about to give up. Taken for
the proverbial ride, Little John escapes and finds shelter among
the Floracians, a monastic order devoted to "beautifying the
lives of men with flowers." Thus is "Brother Orchid" set on the
path to spiritual rebirth--after settling some old business, of
course. Robinson agreed to make this gangland comedy if Warners
let him star in a pair of historical biopics, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic
Bullet and A Dispatch from Reuter's--his own pursuit of class,
perhaps. It was a good deal all around. Brother Orchid also
features Ann Sothern as Sarto's patient moll, Ralph Bellamy in
one of his trademark amiable-sap roles, Donald Crisp and Cecil
Kellaway among the horticultural monks, and a funny, Runyonesque
screenplay by Earl Baldwin.
The final entries, two more from Jimmy Cagney's busy year of
1933, both suffer from weak scripts. Archie Mayo's The Mayor of
Hell focuses on the plight of inner-city youth sent to reform
schools where they're more likely to be destroyed than
rehabilitated. We get a full two reels of setup (featuring
troubled lad Frankie Darro, soon to star in Wild Boys of the
Road) before Cagney shows up 24 minutes in, as a political hack
whose newly won sinecure of "deputy commissioner" includes token
responsibility for Peakstown State Reformatory. A former slum kid
himself, he evolves from "What do I have to do to make things
look regular?" to taking an active interest in his charges, at
the mercy of a warden (Dudley Digges) who's both corrupt and
sadistic. An absurdly pain-free revolution reforms Hell for a
fleeting moment, till a subplot involving Cagney's larcenous
interests sidelines him and opens the way for a violent and
anarchic climax. Roy Del Ruth's Lady Killer is much lighter fare,
with Cagney as a movie-theater usher who falls victim to a con
game, then joins in the scam and soon is running the outfit. When
one ornate caper results in a bystander getting hurt, Cagney has
to hop a train two steps ahead of the law. At the other end of
those train tracks is Hollywood, where he catches the eye of
someone from Central Casting who thinks he'd make a good gangster
type in the movies. Full-fledged stardom is only a reel change
away--whereupon that old gang of his comes sniffing around. Some
of this is diverting, some is just sloppy; the film gives the
impression of having had different writers assigned from scene to
scene. However, the satiric jabs at Hollywood are fun, and
Cagney, as always, has his lyric moments.
All the films in the set look spiffy, and each comes with a
"Warner Night at the Movies" package of cartoons, trailers, and
sometimes other short subjects. The full-length commentary tracks
range from fanboy blither (Picture Snatcher, alas) to
authoritative testimony, with Anthony Slide and Patricia King
Hanson offering socio-historical ins on Black Legion and
veteran noiristes Alain Silver and James Ursini paying close
attention to matters of style and nuance on Smart Money (though
one of them twice misstates that the Hawks-Hughes face was
made at Universal). --Richard T. Jameson
