Synopsis: Packin' A Punch
and Packin' Heat! On the heels of the success of the Warner Bros. Gangster Collection, the Warner Bros. Gangsters Collection, Volume 2 (formerly titled the Tough Guys Collection delivers six DVD Classics featuring Hollywood's greatest Academy-Award winning tough guys James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson. Bullets or Ballots They rule by the fear of their guns. They must be stopped by the power of your ballots. They refers to Bugs Fenner and other mobsters whose illicit rackets will be smashed to smithereens by undercover cop Johnny Blake. When Warner Bros.' Depression-era gangster movies began to draw protests, the studio reinvigorated the genre with stories emphasizing law enforcers instead of lawbreakers. The swift, sturdy Bullets or Ballots reflects that, with Edward G. Robinson (as Blake) siding with the good guys for the first time in a gangland saga. Humphrey Bogart plays the short-fused Fenner. And Joan Blondell and Louise Beavers, in an unusual story element for the times, are thriving numbers operators whose grift is usurped by the mob. City for Conquest Ex-Golden Gloves fighter Danny Kenny has it all worked out. He'll turn pro to bankroll his brother's dream of writing a symphonic paean to the teeming city where they both live: New York. But life pulls the sidewalk out from under Danny when he's blinded during a brutal 15-round welterweight title bout. James Cagney plays Danny in this heart-tugging melodrama co-starring Ann Sheridan, Anthony Quinn, film-debuting Arthur Kennedy and in a rare acting turn before becoming a director, Elia Kazan. Among familiar studio players, there's an unbilled one: a vivid backlot and rear-screen Manhattan. Sometimes we wonder, The New York Times' Bosley Crowther wrote, whether it wasn't really the Warner brothers who got New York from the Indians, so diligent and devoted have they been in feeling the great city's pulse. Each Dawn I Die Although innocent, reporter Frank Ross is found guilty of murder and is sent to jail. While his friends at the newspaper try to find out who framed him, Frank gets hardened by prison life and his optimism turns into bitterness. He meets fellow-inmate Stacey and they decide to help each other. G-Men In 1931, James Cagney helped jump-start the gangster genre as The Public Enemy. In 1935, he waged on-screen war against the nation's public enemies. Outcries against movies that glorified underworld criminals put Cagney on the side of the law in G Men. Emphasis may have changed but elements are the same. G Men builds to a fury of bold escapes, siren-wailing pursuits and frenzied shootouts. Anything worth newspaper space is worth a movie, Warner Bros. executive Lou Edelman declared. Here, a punchy hot-off-the-presses account of the pursuit and capture of John Dillinger provides the story inspiration as tough-guy Cagney gives it to 'em good in a movie that's fast, gutsy, as simplistic and powerful as a tabloid headline (Geoff Andrew, Time Out Film Guide). San Quentin Do the crime, do the time. But what happens during the long years spent behind the walls of San Quentin? The penitentiary's new yard captain wants to make those years a time of rehabilitation rather than punishment. But not everyone's buying it. He's just another copper to me, snarls inmate Red Kennedy. Humphrey Bogart portrays Red, continuing his climb to stardom in this brisk film that's one of a string of Depression-era works combining gangster-movie elements with a Big House setting. Studio mainstay Pat O'Brien plays Steve Jameson, whose carrot-and-stick reforms begin to change Red's thinking. An inmates' strike and a scripture-quoting con who swipes a rifle are among the troubles Jameson faces. And Red is another as he reverts to his old ways and makes a violent break for freedom. A Slight Case of Murder Prohibition's ban on booze is over, and that means bootlegger Remy Marco must make some changes. Don't go calling his beer-peddling enterprise a racket. It's now a business. Employees are no longer lugs or palookas, they're associates. And don't refer to Marco as da boss. Use sir. He's gone legit, see? Edward G. Robinson plays Marco, spoofing his Little Caesar persona in a comedy spree based on Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay's Broadway play. Lloyd Bacon, director of Robinson's gangster sendups Brother Orchid and Larceny, Inc., guides with screwball flair as corpses, creditors, the swellest of swells and more mayhem descend on Marco. Allen Jenkins, Edward Brophy and Harold Huber with 340+ career credits between them are among the lugs-cum-associates. You're about to open a major case of laughter. |