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List Price: $59.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 47014
Released: March 25, 2008 |
| Our Price: $39.53 |
| Used Price: $27.48 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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 fate) and a daring shot 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 father, 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 aim 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.
Description of Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid):
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 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 pre–High 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 Klan–like 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 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 fatally 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 reclaim 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 insights 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 Scarface was made at Universal). --Richard T. Jameson
Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid) Reviews:
Gansters - Vol. 3 
2009-10-06 - Excellent black & white (which I love) WB movies of the 1930's era. Highly recommend this album. This set includes the only movie that Robinson & Cagney appeared in together. I have 1-2-3 volumes now & will order Vol. 4 (which is out now) soon. Hoping for a special price on this.
Cagney and Robinson with a little bit of Bogie thrown in for good measure! 
2009-07-25 - Volume#3 of Warner's "Gangsters Collection" features alot of Cagney,some Robinson with a little bit of Bogie thrown into the mix.This one is a step up from Volume#2 as far as ratings go,and features,for the most part,some interesting flicks that you will be sure to enjoy.
"Lady Killer",released in time for Christmas of 1933(3 1/2 stars) stars a very likable James Cagney as Dan Quigley.He is fired as an usher at a theatre and winds up being a victim of a purse to card game scam,with one Myra(Mae Clarke)as the bait.When Dan gets wise to it,he virtually takes it over promising bigger returns for her and the rest of the cons.True to his word the gang rakes in the dough but when a house keeper gets killed Dan washes his hands of them and they all go on the lam.He and Myra head to L.A.where he ends up in the slammer and Myra and another gang member run out on him.Eventually he gets out and makes a new career for himself in the movies,falling in love with an actress Louis Underwood(Margaret Lindsay).But the old gang comes back to haunt him and blackmail him.He pays them off but they keep after him.In the end he acquits himself and the gang goes off to jail.
The plot is a bit contrived at times but Cagney's persona,as in so many other films,wins you over practically from the start.This film also features the (then) much anticipated return "bout" with Mae Clark.In this one he grabs her hair,drags off a chair to the door then picks her up and throws her into the hallway;baggage not far behind.Watch for some neat little pre-code sexual innuendoes in the first part of the film.
"Black Legion",released January/37,(3 stars) features Humphrey Bogart as Frank Taylor.He is a factory machinist who thinks he is a shoe in for the upcoming foreman's position.He is married and a father of one son,lives a pleasant life and is well liked among his friends.When he is passed up for promotion he becomes very bitter.That night he listens to a radio broadcast concerning a group "concerned" about the the protection of American jobs from foreigners and other hate motivated rhetoric;the Black legion.A co-worker he learns is already a member and after a meeting he joins up.He and the group go on a local reign of terror until Frank inadvertantly shoots one of his best friends.He is put on trial and instead of lying as the Legion demands,part way through he gives in and confesses on the stand.He and the group go off to serve life sentences.
The film is based on the actual group the Black Legion,which terrorized and killed many "undesirables" during the 30s;an arm of the infamous KKK.The film was intended to be a little preachy but gets its' message across without going over board.Watch for actor Joe Sawyer as Bogie's friend who was already a BL member.A busy actor who is well remembered for his role years later in the Sc-Fi flick "It Came From Outer Space" as one of the power company men(Russell Johnson was the other).
Brother Orchid,released in June/40(4 stars) stars Edward G Robinson as Johnny Sarto,a rackateer boss.Johnny is fed up with the crime scene,quits(once and for all)and leaves on a five year trip to Europe to search for "class",leaving his underling Jack Buck(Bogart)in charge.His "search" just ends up blowing all his dough and he telegraphs his return to his former gang mates.When he arrives he finds he isnt welcome,is tossed out and vows to get back on top.In an attempt to get Sarto and Buck back together,his girlfriend Florence(Ann Southern) arranges a meeting between Jack and Johnny which goes horribly awry with Johnny fleeing only to get shot in the back.He falls down in front of a monastery and the brothers therein nurse him back to health.Over time Johnny,now called Brother Orchid,becomes quite popular but when a chance comes to finally get back at his former gang he takes it and he helps the police shut them down.Instead of marrying his girlfriend he returns to the monastical way of life;real class,he says.
This an utterly charming film as we see Robinson transform from his shallow but tough guy persona into a trusting and sincere human being in the end. Everyone involved from Southern to the monastery Brother Superior(Donald Crisp) to Southerns boyfriend Clarence(Ralph Bellamy) does a fine job.
Mayor of Hell,released in June/33(3 -4 stars),stars James Cagney as Patsy Gargan a racketeer who,due to his influence,gets a job as deputy commissioner of reform schools.The low down head of the school Mr Thompson(Dudley Digges)doesnt much like Patsy's style,when he comes calling.Patsy soon meets one of the tougher boys Jimmy(Frankie Darro) who was sent here with the rest of his young gang friends.Things are bad at the school with Ferguson cooking the books until Patsy with the help of the school nurse Miss Griffiths(Madge Evans) change things for the better.When Patsy accidentally shoots one of his gang for a double cross he has to lamb out of town,leaving the boys at the school in the hands of Ferguson again.Things go down hill and when one boy dies in the cooler,the entire school takes their revenge on Ferguson.Patsy,wise to the news,returns back in time to stop things before they go too far.The kids are exonerated and Patsy gets Fergusons job.
A well done movie,it is a bit of a different role for Cagney but he pulls it off with ease.All the boys involved do a tremendous job in their parts.Watch for Farina from the Our Gang series as Joliet.
Smart Money,released in July/31(3 stars),stars Edward G Robinson as Greek barber Nick Venizelos and James Cagney as Jack,his right hand man.Nick is a successful barber who is amazingly lucky in gambling.His employees back him when he decides to go to the big city to try his luck.He gets into a game,is conned and gets fleeced.He soon gets wise and tails the men.By this time he is not alone and has back up.He wins back his money and more and goes on to open a very successful gambling club.The local law wants nothing better than to put him away and in the end they do,but with a twist.A girl Nick has trusted has turned snitch on him and Jack discovers it and hits her.Nick walks in and seeing it knocks Jack down,inadvertently killing him.The police come in and at first arrest him for gambling but when they discover Jack is dead, a murder rap gets added to the list.The girl confesses to a stunned Nick that she did indeed snitch.He is led away,but with his spirits not shaken.
Partly filmed during The Public Enemy,Cagneys part is scant and many of the other actors get far more screen time than he does.Overall the pace is good and the dialogue punchy.Watch for a brief appearance of Boris Karloff,pre-Frankenstein.
Finally "Picture Snatcher",released in May of/33(3 1/2 - 4 stars),stars Cagney as ex con Danny Kean.Just out of the jug he returns to his gang and tells them he is quitting and going legit.Danny always wanted to be a newpaperman and gets a job with the lowest of the lowest rags in town.The editor Al Maclean(Ralph Bellamy),smart but alcoholic,become fast friends.Danny takes every dirty job going and becomes very succesful.When he sneaks a pic of a women getting fried in the chair,the cops and every newspaperman in town go after him.But the photo gets published.However Danny has fallen in love with the daughter of the cop who put him in the slammer in the first place and his "exploits" on the paper get him in hot water with him on many occasion.In the climax of the movie Al informs Danny he's quit the paper to get a job somewhere else but he needs a great story to get a chance.At that moment one of Danny's ex gang members is holed up in an apartment hiding from the cops for killing three people.Danny goes there and is with him until the inevitable shooting stops and he is dead.But Danny gets his pictures,he and Al get a job,he gives credit to his girl's father,and he and his girl reunite for a happy ending.
I can't say enough about Cagney.He had such a great range of emotion and characterization and he really dominates every scene he is in.He is certainly one of the greatest actors of all time.And,oh,yes,I counted THREE slugs to a woman in this picture!The public at the time ate it up and it added to the Cagney mystique and payed off big time at the box office.
Technically these movies have been remastered well from good prints and are generally crisp and clean.What gives this a solid four star rating are the extras added into each DVD.There are the vintage cartoons(very clean),commentary for each movies,trailers for the movies and other titles,vintage newsreel clips,and some wonderful 30s musical shorts featuring three big band names of the time,including the great Cab Calloway.
All in all another welcome release by Warner Brothers of some of their earlier gangsters films.While some of these films may be a little light on the gangster angle,they are still all enjoyable flicks.We get to see a star on the rise(Bogie),and two newly established stars,Robinson and Cagney.Cagney has deservedly received great critical acclaim over the years but Robinson has never received the same treatment.Watch his performances and tell me you don't see the same presence and domination of almost every scene like Cagney.Hopefully with these welcome releases of Robinson material the public will get to see just how good an actor he was;every bit on a par with his peers."Gangsters-Volume 3" is a definite keeper,see.
Lady Killer
2009-01-11 - I bought this set of gansters 3 and it is very good and 3 of the best actors when it comes to buy this type of movie. howevr the title of lady Killers is very good and an intesting movie, but it is down on the sound towards the end, print is very good , for the rest of the set well all are very good bar for a couple little odd bits at time but does not spoil the movie, it is a very good set and well worth the purchase so go ahead and put it to your collection. when it comes to actors like these you cant beat Cagney and Bogart and Edward G Robinson. they are the pioneers.
A box full of crooks, molls and gats
2008-12-28 - The natural problem with Warner Bros. Gangsters Collection, Volume 3 is that most of the big movies have already been included in the first two volumes. In particular, the first set included nothing but classics: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, White Heat and others. The second set (originally called the "Tough Guys" set) was nearly as good, but with less true classics. The third set has still less well-known movies, but still is a nice sextet of movies featuring the big gangster stars of the 1930s and `40s, particularly Bogart, Cagney and Robinson.
Chronologically, the first movie is Smart Money, most noted for being the only movie with both James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. It isn't a co-billing, though: made before Public Enemy made Cagney a star, it has Robinson in the lead as a skilled gambler with a weakness for blondes. Though not really a comedy, it does have a lighter tone and a pre-Code sensibility.
Lady Killer is more comic, with Cagney rising from theater usher to movie star while getting involved with gangsters along the way. Similarly, Picture Snatcher has ex-con Cagney becoming successful as a newspaper photographer; complications ensue when he falls for the daughter of the cop who once put him away.
The Mayor of Hell is the final Cagney movie, in which he is a party boss who is rewarded with a job as a commisioner of a reform school. The school is run by a cruel warden who is surprised when Cagney becomes an actual reformer. Though Cagney is the star, he is in more of a supporting role, with the kids taking the lead.
Black Legion is one of Bogart's first starring vehicles. He is a generally nice family man until he loses out on a promotion at his plant. Though the other man was more deserving, Bogart begins to blame the man's foreigness and soon joins the title organization, a version of the Ku Klux Klan. The Legion gives Bogie some new opportunities, but he realizes the price is greater than expected. Ironically, this anti-prejudice message movie is accompanied by a short subject about the Civil War that glorifies Stonewall Jackson and the South.
The final movie is another comedy, Black Orchid, with Robinson as a gangster who decides to retire and get himself some "class". Unfortunately, all he does is lose all his money, forcing him to go back into his old profession. His successor, played by Bogart, has other ideas, and eventually Robinson is forced to take refuge at a monastery where he will learn some important lessons.
Okay, these movies may not be classics, but they are all four-star material, and the set as a whole is enhanced by lots of extras, most notably the commentaries on all the movies and the "Warner Night at the Movies" feature that allows you to watch an old movie preview, newsreel, short subject and cartoon before the movie itself kicks in. If you have enjoyed the earlier Gangster sets, this one is definitely worth picking up.
A terrific collection of "B" thrillers
2008-09-30 - If like me you have a deep affection for those lurid Warners gangster flicks, you'll love these movies. There's more to Cagney, Bogie and Robinson than today's youngsters can appreciate. Take "Smart Money", perhaps the best of the collection, This is one of those snappy gems only the WB could produce. There's not a single bomb in this box. Highly recommended!
