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The Warner Gangsters Collection (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties)
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Product Description
The Public Enemy showcases James Cagney's powerful 1931 breakthrough performance as streetwise tough guy Tom Powers. When shooting began, Cagney had a secondary role but Zanuck soon spotted Cagney's screen dominance and gave him the star part. From that moment, an indelible genre classic and an enduring star career were both born.
As a psychotic thug devoted to his hard-boiled ma, James Cagney - older, scarier and just as elctrifying - gives a performance to match his work in The Public Enemy as White Heat's cold-blooded Cody Jarrett. Bracingly directed by Raoul Walsh, this fast-paced thriller tracing Jarrett's violent life in and out of jail is also a harrowing character study. Jarrett is a psychological time bomb ruled by impulse. It is among the most vivid screen performances of Cagney's career, and the excitement it generates will put you on top of the world!
In Angels with Dirty Faces, Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic ghetto tough whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks. The 1938 New York Film Critics Best Actor Award came Cagney's way, as well as one of the film's three Oscar nominations. Watch the chilling death-row finale and you'll know why.
"R-I-C-O, Little Caesar, that's who!" Edward G. Robinson bellowed into the phone. And Hollywood got the message: 37-year-old Robinson, not gifted with matinee-idol looks, was nonetheless a first-class star and moviegoers hailed the hard-hitting social consciousness dramas that became the Depression-era mainstay of Warner Bros.
Little Caesar is the tale of pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello, a hoodlum with a Chicago-sized chip on his shoulder, few attachments, fewer friends and no sense of underworld diplomacy. And Robinson - a genteel art collector who disdained guns (in the movie, his eyelids were taped to keep them from blinking when he fired a pistol) - was forever associated with the screen's archetypal gangster.
A rundown diner bakes in the Arizona heat. Inside, fugitive killer Duke Mantee sweats out a manhunt, holding disillusioned writer Alan Squier, young Gabby Maple and a handful of others hostage.
The Petrified Forest, Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 Broadway success about survival of the fittest, hit the screen a year later with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart magnificently recreating their stage roles and Bette Davis ably reteaming with her Of Human Bondage co-star Howard. Sherwood first wanted Bogart for a smaller role. "I thought Sherwood was right," Bogart said. "I couldn't picture myself playing a gangster. So what happened? I made a hit as the gangster." So right was he that Howard refused to make the film without him...and helped launch Bogie's brilliant movie career.
In The Roaring Twenties, the speakeasy era never roared louder than in this gangland chronicle that packs a wallop under action master Raoul Walsh's direction. Against a backdrop of newsreel-like montages and narration, it follows the life of jobless war veteran Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) who turns bootlegger, dealing in "bottles instead of battles." Battles await Eddie within and without his growing empire. Outside are territorial feuds and gangland bloodlettings. Inside is the treachery of his double-dealing associate (Humphrey Bogart). It would be 10 years before Cagney played another gangster (in White Heat), a time in which gangster movies themselves became rare. "He used to be a big shot," Panama Smith (Gladys George) says at the finale, marking Bartlett's demise...and signaling the end of Hollywood's focus on the gangster era.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #26332 in DVD
- Brand: Warner Brothers
- Released on: 2005-01-25
- Rating: NR (Not Rated)
- Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
- Formats: Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
- Original language: English
- Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
- Number of discs: 6
- Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
- Running time: 541 minutes
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
For a knock-out combination of timeless entertainment and vintage studio history, you can't do much better than The Warner Brothers Gangsters Collection. In the 1930s and '40s, Paramount specialized in glossy comedies, MGM popularized lavish musicals, Universal produced signature horror classics, and Fox scored hits with sophisticated dramas. But it was Warner Bros. that generated controversy--if not always box-office profits--with so-called "social problem" films, and that meant gangsters. When viewed in their pre- and post-Prohibition context and in chronological order (Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, 1931; The Petrified Forest, 1936; Angels With Dirty Faces, 1938; The Roaring Twenties, 1939; White Heat, 1949), these six films definitively capture Warners' domination of the mobster genre, and to varying degrees, they all qualify as classics.
With its stilted visuals and pulpy plot, Little Caesar remains stuck in the stiff, early-sound era, but it's still a prototypical powerhouse, with Edward G. Robinson's titular "Rico" setting the stage for all screen gangsters to follow. The Public Enemy made James Cagney a star (who can forget him smashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face?), and Humphrey Bogart repeats his Broadway success in The Petrified Forest, a stagy adaptation of Robert Sherwood's play, still enjoyable for Bogey's ever-threatening malevolence. Then it's a Cagney triple-threat in Angels (with Pat O'Brien), racketeering in The Roaring Twenties (with Bogart), and especially the jailbird classic White Heat, with a fiery finale and an exit line ("Made it Ma! Top o' the world!") that epitomized Cagney's iconic, tough-guy image. In many ways Cagney was Warner Bros., and this Gangsters Collection pays enduring tribute to him and the important films that forged the studio's rugged reputation. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Top Of The World Warner Brothers
Who can argue that this isn't the greatest collection of classic gangster films ever made?
If you need more proof about how good these are, I have 3 sources that rated these films BEFORE they were released to DVD.
Leonard Maltin (represented by LM, his highest rating is 4 stars),Nick Martin & Marsha Porter (authers of DVD & Video guide - represented by DVDG), and All Movie Guide (Represented by AMG).
Let's go Chronologically:
Little Caesar: LM- 3 1/2; DVDG - 3; AMG - 5
The Public Enemy: LM - 3 1/2; DVDG - 4 1/2; AMG - 5
The Petrified Forest: LM 3 1/2; DVDG - 4 1/2; AMG - 4
Angels With Dirty Faces: LM - 3 1/2; DVDG - 4 1/2; AMG - 4 1/2
The Roaring Twenties: LM - 3; DVDG - 4 1/2; AMG - 4 1/2
White Heat: LM - 3 1/2; DVDG - 4 1/2; AMG - 5
If you really look at the ratings (and consider that Maltin uses a 4 star rating system (as opposed to a 5 star)),you will see that the profesional critics rate these as quite high. Let's face it. These are the cream of the Warner gangster library. Another neat thing that was done for the DVD is the Warner Night at the Movies (Similarly done with Yankee Doodle Dandy, Treasures of the Sierra Madre, and the Adventures of Robin Hood - also introduced by Leonard Maltin) which gives you the option of viewing the film the way it was in theaters during that year (complete with trailer, news item, short, cartoon, & movie). They all have commentaries by notable historians, and have "Making of" special features (a few which include Martin Scorsese).
The prints are the cleanest I've seen in years (Turner does a top notch job of getting the best available source material).
The sound is above average to good. There are subtitles for the films, and closed captioning. Subtitles in english, french, and spanish.
The bottom line is if you are into this genre, you are going to want to get all 6 of these films (watch them in chronological order, the way the "making of"s are presented is much more rewarding if you do). These are simply the best of the gangster films. Second to none, and (to quote Cagney) "Top of the World".
I Love You, Warner Home Video!!!!!
Ah, good ol' Warner Bros. Home Video! If she were a woman, I'd marry her! First, the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, then the Film Noir Classics Collection, and now this!!! I should have known that they would be the ones who would finally bring the often imitated but never duplicated "White Heat" to DVD. Not only that, but we also get two, count 'em TWO of the infamous pre-Hayes Code gangster classics, the two films which singlehandedly founded the entire crime-drama genre, "The Public Enemy" and "Little Caesar"!
"Angels With Dirty Faces" and "The Roaring Twenties" are also terrific films, and I'm really looking forward to seeing all of these cherished treasures of the American cinema rescued from neglect and digitalized for posterity! From what I've heard, Warner has poured their sweat and blood into this set, with commentaries for each film, vintage poster-art keep-cases, and the deluxe treatment that such a fine pack of films deserves. I think I speak for every classic film fan here when I say that January is going to be a darn good month to have a DVD player!
THE DVD RELEASE OF 2005 IS ALREADY HERE--AMAZING!!!
When it comes down to it, Warner Bros. invented the gangster film. Just like MGM was the tops in musicals, and Universal was the house of horror, the tough, hard-boiled gangster film was imitated elswhere, but never equalled by what WB had done.
How fitting is it that the studio that put its mark on the genre, finally pays homage with an unbelievable boxed set filled with six stunningly gorgeous, restored transfers of 6 masterworks. If you're used to seeing these films on Turner Classic Movie Channel or on VHS or laserdisc, you're in for a shock....They've NEVER looked this good before....and PUBLIC ENEMY has extra scenes that were considered too "racy" and removed from the film after initial release. But WB has put them back here, and it's a kick.
Each film has a new documentary, and that superb "WARNER NIGHT AT THE MOVIE#S" feature with none other than Leonard Maltin to introduce a host of shorts, cartoons, newsreels and featurettes that would re-create the movie-going experience of each film from the year it was made.
I was blown away by this sensational release, and the intelligence, class and care with which it has been assembled surely would make the Brothers Warner, wherever they are, be justifiably proud.
The younger generation left in charge of their celluloid legacy has presented these classics in a way that shows why Warner leaves every one of their competitors in the far distance.
If you love classic films, this bargain-priced boxed set is a must-have!
