Features
- Actors: Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson.
- Format: Box set, Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC.
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0). Subtitles: English, French.
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
- Not Rated.
Amazon.com
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 guns. 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 brash 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 opportunities for risqu 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 Oscar 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 shot like a fist to the chest. Archie Mayo directed; Bogart's fellow name-below-the-title players
You can Download or Watch Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid) Movie Streaming free in High Definition Now. of satisfied members who became tired of waiting for DVDs in the mail, and now watch the hottest NEW RELEASES and CLASSICS on our site.
Watch Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid) Movie in HD
Secure scanned, no virus detected.
Warner Bros. Gangsters Coll.: Vol. 3 - Smart Money, Picture ... ... Vol. 3 - Smart Money, Picture Snatcher, Mayor of Hell, Lady Killer, Black Legion, Brother Orchid ... Starting the Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection: ... Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 - DVDBeaver.com - DVD Blu-ray ... Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3. Picture Snatcher ... Lady Killer - 21 Smart Money - 21 Black Legion - 19 The Mayor of Hell - 26 Brother Orchid ... Amazon.com: Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 4 (The Amazing Dr ... ... The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion ... Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid) ... Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 Smart Money / Picture Snatcher ... PICTURE SNATCHER (1933): An admirably tough B-picture enlivened by an energetic James Cagney performance, Picture Snatcher stars Cagney as Danny Kean, a former ... Amazon.com: Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money ... Amazon.com: Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid): Explore similar items Amazon.com: Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money ... 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 ... Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3: Smart Money (1931) / Picture ... Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3: Smart Money (1931) / Picture Snatcher / Mayor Of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / ... Warner Gangsters Collection: Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture ...
No comments:
Post a Comment