| Perfection is notoriously difficult to achieve, but we can find no room for improvement in Warner Home Video’s collection of vintage gangster movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Indeed, the six films included in this handsomely designed box set collectively represent the pinnacle of the genre: Not only are they all truly classics; they are the best movies of this type ever made. All but one were made during or shortly after Prohibition and the accompanying growth of organized crime in America, and they reflect the times with surprising accuracy. Warner Bros. was always known for its tough, gritty crime thrillers, just as MGM was for its musicals and Universal for its horror movies.
This Set Includes:
Little Caesar
Stick-up man Cesare Enrico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) and his best friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) find spots in the gang of Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields). Rico eventually becomes boss, going especially hard on 'yellow' gang members. Teaming up with Big Boy (Sidney Blackmer), they pull off robberies and create havoc, while Sgt Tom Flaherty (Thomas E. Jackson) waits for his chance to end Rico's career. It comes when Joe loses his nerve; he's fallen in love with his dancing partner Olga Strassoff (Glenda Farrell) and wants to go state's evidence. Rico arrives to murder yet another squealer, but for the first time can't go through with it.
The Public Enemy
Tom Powers and Matt Doyle (James Cagney and Edward Woods) start as boyhood delinquents but soon become hardened gangsters, hired thugs for a string of bosses and bootleggers. As they move up in the crime world they acquire fancy clothes, cars and fast women like Mamie (Joan Blondell), Kitty (Mae Clark) and Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow). Tom stays in touch with his uncomprehending mother and his disapproving brother but always figures he's tough enough to buck whatever comes along, even a gang war that doesn't go favorably for his side.
The Petrified Forest
The Black Mesa Café in Arizona greets a series of unusual guests one hot afternoon. Owner Jason Maple (Porter Hall) goes off to a meeting while his daughter Gabby (Bette Davis) dreams of escaping to France. Instead she has to parry the advances of the gas pump boy, football player Boze (Dick Foran). Then vagabond writer Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) thumbs his way to the shack and gives Gabby a hint of more exciting things in life. When Alan leaves she thinks it is forever, but he soon returns along with some other guests ... all at the gunpoint of the gang of rural stickup men led by the ruthless killer Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart).
Angels With Dirty Faces
Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly (James Cagney and Pat O'Brien) grew up together, but Rocky went the way of reform school and crime while Jerry became a priest. Rocky returns to town from twenty years spent mostly in jail to collect a debt from and reassert his place with his old crony Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart). Frazier immediately plots murder while Rocky is welcomed back to the neighborhood by Jerry. Rocky even rekindles a friendship with a girl he once knew, Laury Ferguson (Ann Sheridan). But Jerry worries about Rocky's influence over the local street kids (collectively billed as "The Dead End Kids), especially when the ex-con starts using them as his personal mini-gang.
The Roaring Twenties
Doughboys Eddie Bartlett, Lloyd Hart and George Hally (James Cagney, Jeffrey Lynn, Humphrey Bogart) come back to tough times in America. Events push Bartlett into small-time bootlegging under the tutelage of speakeasy owner Panama Smith (Gladys George). Hart, now a lawyer, finds a slot in Bartlett's organization along with Bartlett's old buddy Danny Green (Frank McHugh) who trades in his taxi cab for making bathtub gin. In a bid to move up to better goods Eddie partners with the treacherous Hally against Nick Brown, a big-time racketeer (Paul Kelly). His ambition is thwarted by two factors: Untrustworthy associates and his love for Jean Sherman (Priscilla Lane), a singer Eddie sponsors and foolishly thinks is in love with him.
White Heat
Psychopath Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) and his gang rob a train, kill four railroad employees and hole up in a mountain cabin along with Cody's Ma (Margaret Wycherly). She's co-leader of his gang and ministers to his frequent mental seizures. Cody decides to avoid a murder rap by confessing to a local robbery in another state that he arranged to happen at the same time, but T-Man Phil Evans (John Archer) connives to put a spy, Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien), in Jarrett's prison cell. The rest of the gang starts to fall apart when disloyal lieutenant Big Ed (Steve Cochran) moves in on Cody's wife Verna (Virginia Mayo). Even Ma can't stop the betrayals. Meanwhile, Evans and Fallon's confidence game on Cody seems to be working - until Cody breaks down under a severe psychotic episode. |
