Regeneration (1915)

  During film's infancy there were countless individuals that helped to elevate the medium from novelty act to legitimate art form. The techniques and devices that go into making a movie took years to develop. One person, now sidelined for better known film innovators, is Raoul Walsh. Trained as an actor, Walsh made a name for himself on the New York stage. Although his good looks could have led him to a very comfortable life, his path would be to work behind the camera instead of in front of it.

  When Walsh started out New York was still the hub of the film industry and he made money by starring in several Westerns for a small production company in New Jersey. Eventually Walsh made the move to California and became an assistant director to D.W. Griffith. Walsh's apprenticeship to Griffith taught him how to utilize film's then untapped potential to tell epic stories about ordinary people. When Griffith's The Birth of a Nation went into production not only did Walsh serve as assistant director, but he also played John Wilkes Booth.

  After the completion of Griffith's film, Raoul Walsh took crew and equipment back to New York and started production on Regeneration. The script was adapted from a play that was itself based on a book, the gangster autobiography of Owen Kildare.

  The film is considered the first feature length gangster movie. Yet the gangsters in the movie are not the flashy well-groomed characters that are now commonplace in articles, movies, and television shows. The gangsters in this film are neighborhood toughs. Their days aren't consumed though by street fights and turf battles, but rather on the relief of boredom. Several scenes within the film consist of characters just drinking beer, enjoying a cigarette, or standing on a street corner. There is nothing about the gangster lifestyle portrayed in this film that a contemporary movie audience would consider as exciting.

  As a student of Griffith's the film cares more about the social circumstances that create the type of desperation that turns boys into crooks. Walsh does not clean up the urban squalor. The muck and grime of the streets is a very tangible reality. Even the casting is authentic; most of the extras were real locals from the Bowery area as well as from Hell's Kitchen. Gangsters in this film come in all shapes, sizes, and defects.

  Another technique that Walsh borrowed from Griffith was the use of cross-cutting. By taking two separate events occurring at the same time and selectively ordering the shots in a specific way a director could invariably break the barrier between time and space, construct their own timeline, and have a more assured control over the pace and rhythm of their film.

  The title of the film speaks to the protagonist of the story, Owen Conway, and his transition from street thug to functional member of society. Walsh establishes at the start of the film that Owen is a victim of tenement living; after his parents die he practically becomes a slave to an old couple. He survives by using his fists and although hardened by the callousness of the streets there is a tiny part of him that believes something better is out there. That thing for Owen comes in the form of Marie Deering, his Mamie Rose. Marie is a social worker and unlike many later women characters in a Walsh film she embodies sincere proper goodness. Her love for Owen is what redeems him at the end.

  Although the film has been relegated as an artifact of the 1910's a careful look at it will surprise many with just how contemporary this story is; and in some ways this film is more daring than the typical gangster stories that we see now. This movie does not look away from the denizens of the street. While many directors may try to create a reality that they believe an audience might find palatable, Raoul Walsh was confident that what was already in front of his camera was all he needed to tell his story. 

A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

  During his days as a journalist in New York Damon Runyon crafted the myth of Broadway. He spent his days writing articles about the people that populated New York City's night life. He was known for juxtaposing the respectable law-abiding citizen with the mugs, hoodlums, and dolls that trafficked Times Square. When the english language did not have the appropriate word or phrase to capture the feeling of the streets Runyon didn't think twice about inventing them from everyday words. In Runyon's world a roscoe is a gun, a shiv is a knife, and if you were smart you knew to keep your snoot out of a mug's business when he was packing either of them.

  As Runyon became more and more popular he started to turn his attention away from documenting the real-life travails of New York's gamblers, gangsters, and ever-loving louts and put his energy towards creating original work based on characters he knew quite well.

  A Slight Case of Murder started out as a play but with the help of Lloyd Bacon, the director, Edward G. Robinson, the star, and a cast packed with the decade's best character actors a gangster comedy classic was created.

  Edward G. Robinson plays good guy bootlegger Remy Marco; a character who takes several cues from previous tough guy protagonists that Robinson has played. With the repeal of Prohibition Marco decides to go legit and start a brewery so that he can provide the entire country with beer legally. Marco's desire for respectability almost does him in several times during the story though. As in most gangster stories the stench of the streets is a stink that doesn't easily go away.

  The comedy within the movie is rooted in the audience being well aware of the conventions of the gangster story. It is to the entire casts credit that every actor in the story doesn't overdo the comedic elements of the characters they are portraying, because with just one wrong note the entire movie could have collapsed into a dramatic mess. The level of violence in the movie is ramped up due to the fact that the story is about gangsters, but one never feels the anxiety of the violence being enacted on the screen. You don't believe that the victims of violence within the movie are really human. Not to say that the characters are mere caricature's, but that unlike dramatic gangster movies that had to cater to the whims of the Hays Code, making sure to never show a gangster enjoying or getting away with breaking the law, the comedic gangster movie could get away with most things as long as it was for a laugh.

  With this movie an audience can root for the gangster and not feel guilty for siding with the bad guys. The gangsters in the story are neither good or bad; in fact as you watch the movie it is quite easy to even forget that these characters are gangsters. By treating the characters as people first and gangsters second the movie creates a believable reality that still gets plenty of laughs.

San Quentin (1937)

  The clanging of tin cups on bars, a stampede of inmates marching back and forth inside their cells, and the scared glances from armed guards as the threat of a riot looms; these are the cliches of the prison picture. Yet with San Quentin the aim is not just for cheap entertainment, but also prison reform. The director, Lloyd Bacon, takes all these stock ingredients; brutal prison guards, hardened inmates, a progressive warden, and creates a tight action-packed movie.

  Pat O'Brien stars as Steve Jameson the new captain of the yard for San Quentin and he brings military discipline to the harsh environment of the prison. Like all progressive characters from the 1930's he believes in harsh punishment for those who don't toe the line, but is also capable of giving any man a second chance. Opposing him every step of the way is Lieutenant Druggin, played by Barton MacLane, who would rather knock a man down instead of shake his hand. 

  These two men fight each other for control of the prison, and this film concentrates that battle with Humphrey Bogart's character, 'Red' Kennedy, a fresh fish in a pool of hard-edged criminals. The film makes it very clear that 'Red' is a product of reform schools, but with the right type of treatment he has the capacity to clean up his act and make something of himself. Yet bad habits die-hard when 'Red' finds out that the special treatment he's getting from the captain of the yard has something to do with the fact that Jameson is going out with his sister May, played by Ann Sheridan. 'Red' undoes all the progress he's made by letting his anger take hold of him, but like in all Warner Bros. films from that decade redemption is never impossible to attain as long as you are willing to pay the ultimate price.

  With a 70 minute running time their isn't much space for character development, but everybody involved with the film should be proud for turning out a top notch studio picture that neither wastes time, talent, or intensity.

G Men (1935)

  William Keighley shines a light on the FBI with G Men, and by film's end he not only makes popular a colloquial nickname for the bureau's agents but also charts the mythology for the fledgling agency. The movie can be categorized more specifically as government propaganda then it can as gangster movie now, but nonetheless this movie grabs hold of the audience's eyes and ears from the very first scene and doesn't let go till the end credits.

  Not counting the prologue, tacked on more than a decade after the film's premiere on J. Edgar Hoover's orders, the film opens with 'Brick' Davis, played by James Cagney, looking directly at the camera and expounding on the merits of truth, justice, and "keeping on the level." Of course this type of attitude hasn't left him with many viable clients.

  'Brick' Davis came from the slums and thanks to a less-than reputable benefactor he gets a law degree on gratis. This conflict between where Davis came from and where he wants to go is present throughout every scene in the movie. His benefactor, McKay, is a Prohibition era racketeer and is painted, most likely for the censor's benefit, as an apologetic gangster. With the repeal of Prohibition he can't keep up with the less-than savory rackets that are popping up, making him a powerless figurehead in his own organization.

  The relationship Davis and McKay have with one another is quite complicated. Each man is governed by a different set of rules; McKay rules by exploiting personal vices while 'Brick' believes in the power of the law. The only tangible connection they have with each other is geography; both men grew up in the same slums and had to suffer through the same type of obstacles. McKay looks at Davis as a possible do-over, an opportunity for him to help somebody from his neighborhood achieve success without having to corrupt themselves to attain it; for McKay helping Davis is basically a form of penance for all the laws he's broken.

  When the film shifts its focus to the FBI we are treated to the science of crime fighting; criminal investigation has been elevated from a job reliant on snitches and stool pigeons to an exact science where microscopic evidence can lead to arrests. During his training Davis finds a mentor in Jeff McCord, played by Robert Armstrong. Although both men don't think much of each other when they first meet, Davis gains McCord's respect after successfully taking down a few of the FBI's Most Wanted through a combination of street smarts and familiarity with the use of a gun and his fists.

  The gangsters that Davis and McCord have to collar are amalgamations of real life people during the Great Depression, like John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly, and were familiar to most audience members when this movie first came out. As characters these gangsters are mostly one-dimensional, merely story devices used to illustrate just how ineffectual local law enforcement was in stopping these bandits until the FBI finally stepped in as the nation's protector.

  A sub-plot develops parallel to the main story where Cagney's character falls head over heels for McCord's sister, Kay. The scenes with Cagney and Margaret Lindsay, who plays Kay, are a great break from all the gun play and this secondary story intersects quite neatly with the main story in the third act.

  Keighley traces the FBI's baptism by fire with a re-enactment of two key events during the bureau's war on crime in the 1930's, the Kansas City Massacre and the shootout at the Little Bohemia Lodge with John Dillinger's gang. In real life these events were considered embarrassing disasters for the FBI, but within the movie they are used as justification for the arming of the bureau's agents and also for their use of a shoot first talk later strategy when dealing with so-called public enemies. The film may offer a simplistic and exaggerated account of how the FBI came to be born, but due to the film's success with the public the gangster movie had to now make room for the valiant cop protagonist.

Scarface (1932)

  In the reality that is Howard Hawks' Scarface the world is yours, but at a price. X marks death. There were gangster movies before this film's release and plenty afterwards, but no other gangster movie could get away with such comic violence masked as social problem picture. Every spray from a Tommy gun elicits a laugh not just from the hoods who are doing the shooting, but also from the audience who relishes watching every bloody death.

  All gangster movies are, in some capacity, skewed American dream stories. The gangsters are usually immigrants and thus not part of the status quo society. The goal of the immigrant gangster is to assimilate and to do this they have to acquire all the status symbol accoutrement's that the rich and powerful have deemed as mandatory for all those successful to have.

  Of course the rub is that the very club they want to enter has closed their doors to them. Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte as a high-energy go-getter who is completely ignorant of how repugnant his actions are. His entire body is expressive and with just a raise of an eyebrow or tap from his cigar tells whoever is watching that this is a man of action.

  For his second in command, Camonte has Guino Rinaldo, played by George Raft, who menacingly flips a coin, letting the coin toss decide whether he should listen to his angels or the devils that are neatly tucked into his gun holster.

  Both Camonte and Rinaldo share the same goal, to takeover the city. To do this they spark a gang war and in doing so kill just as many civilians as they do rival gangsters. Camonte is so desperate to be accepted by his adopted country that he tries to change the way he speaks, the way he dresses, and even takes up with a blonde, Poppy, who represents the type of respectability he craves but can never really have.

  Poppy, played by Karen Morley, is repulsed at first by how Camonte physically looks and also by his uncouth behavior yet as the story moves along and Tony bludgeons his way to the top she becomes more and more attracted to him. She is, in a way, a stand-in for the audience who were equally disgusted by the stories of gangland violence that newspapers would peddle around on a daily basis, but the idea of somebody bucking the system and getting away with it, even if only for a short while, is a very attractive story.

  The other woman in Tony's life is his sister, Francesca 'Cesca' Camonte, played by Ann Dvorak. Tony's feelings for Cesca have been interpreted by many as incestuous, but it may be less lascivious than that. Whereas Poppy is the "civilized" society that Tony wants to belong to Cesca represents his roots, where he came from and ultimately where he feels safest. Cesca, like Tony, is hyper sexual and quite expressive with her body. He pushes away any man that shows interest in her not because he wants to have her sexually, but to keep her from being tainted or, even worse, diluted by a society that does not look so kindly on those that act differently.

  Although the picture was made to be an indictment of gangsterism it is difficult not to root for Tony as he is surrounded by cops who are all too anxious to storm his home and drag his body out on the street to parade around for those "proper" Americans who were quite threatened by the immigrant menace. Tony Camonte is labeled as the shame of the nation in this picture, but he became that way because of a system that rejected him. The American dream is an engine that is fueled by many immigrants that come into the country wanting a better life. Tony Camonte took what he wanted, he did it the illegal way, but his actions were no worse than the public's whose apathy for the downtrodden poor helped to create the gangsters that they vilified.

Each Dawn I Die (1939)

The idea of the reporter as a purveyor of truth in a world populated with blind sheep was a popular image during the Great Depression. They unearthed the buried crimes of the rich and powerful, and created a podium for the disenfranchised to speak freely. Each Dawn I Die takes the reporter out of the newsroom and puts him smack in the middle of a news story.

James Cagney plays Frank Ross a zealous reporter who uncovers a graft scandal at the start of the movie and, to shut him up, gets framed for vehicular manslaughter. Ross believes in the justice system, and can't picture a country that would send innocent men into the bowels of Rocky Point Penitentiary. All throughout the picture he rails against corruption while never condemning the flawed system that put him in a jail cell. Even when the very system he is defending beats him down on a daily basis Ross stands firm in his belief that he will get out. Audiences in the 1930's went to see this movie not for its social message though, but rather for the simple fact that it teamed up two stars, James Cagney and George Raft. Both were New Yorkers who went to the West Coast and made careers out of playing tough guy roles, and it must have been exciting to be a moviegoer then watching these two physically and verbally spar with each other on the big screen.

  
Inside the penitentiary, the story becomes a study of the male relationship, specifically between Ross and Raft's gangster character, Stacey. The bond between these two men is what keeps this movie from going stale. Ross and Stacey deal with prison life on their own terms yet one has to admire the fact that neither allows the inhuman treatment they get to devolve them into the animals that many of the inmates have become.    
Ross is a newcomer to the penal system while Stacey is a product of it. Throughout most of the story Ross is quite passive even as he witnesses the guards abuse and brutalize the inmates. Audience's soon realize, just as Ross does, that the rules of the outside world have no meaning in prison. On the other hand, Stacey holds a lot of power inside the prison, but is completely distrustful of everybody and is caught off guard by Ross' friendship. Stacey finds in Ross "a square guy", and gives up his freedom to help his friend.    
It's no surprise that in this prison movie the most flawed performance was Jane Bryan who plays Joyce Conover, Ross' girlfriend. She has very little to do but beg everybody around her to help Cagney's character. By the end of the movie we miss Raft's character more and really could care less of Ross and Joyce's reunion.    
William Keighley was primarily known as an action director during his tenure at Warner Bros. but he always managed to direct the audience's attention towards social problems. This movie illustrated how the power of the political machine can manipulate people to lock up good citizens and that the penal system can just as easily create crooks as well as they can rehabilitate them.

Bullets or Ballots (1936)

  The failure of law and the stifling bureaucracy of justice is the overriding theme in Bullets or Ballots, a 1930's gangster movie that was a definite product of the Depression. Whereas in previous gangster movies an audience would follow a gangster's rise and fall in this movie we look at the war on crime from the point of view of the dutiful cop. This is a story of corruption; something that the Warner Bros. social picture excelled at telling.

  At the start of the movie we are treated to a newsreel where we, the audience, are informed of how the gangster's reach permeates throughout every aspect of daily life. Yet these are not the gangster's of the Prohibition era. The clean-cut businessman has replaced the gun-toting cigar-chomping gangster. To fight their battles they use wiretaps and lawyers as well as their fists, gangsterism had transformed into big business.

  With the Depression hitting the country hard banks were the enemy and in this movie capitalism was the root of all societal problems. The entire system was put on trial in this movie and the rich, respectable politicians and community leaders were guilty of profiting off of vice and the blood and sweat of hard-working Americans.

  Edward G. Robinson plays Johnny Blake, a cop who believes that to battle crime you need to use your fists to beat crooks into submission. The thin divide between cop and crook does not exist in this movie. Blake is comfortable talking with his boss, McLaren, as he is hanging out with mob boss Al Kruger. He may slap around the ten-cent thugs that he encounters on the street, but for Blake there is a real respect that he feels for Kruger.

  That cannot be said about Kruger's right-hand man, Nick Fenner. Humphrey Bogart imbues Fenner with the cold detachment that all gangsters share but also adds a layer of seething anger and a feeling of entitlement. Fenner can't adapt to the new corporate business-like structure of the gang. When he sees a threat his first thought is to shoot, and not to negotiate. Johnny Blake's conversion from cop to crook doesn't fool Fenner, and although he is looked down upon as just another petty thug, one has to give him credit for being smart enough to not be so easily fooled.

  In between the scenes with Blake and his dealings with Kruger's gang we are treated to the nightclub world with Joan Blondell who plays Lee Morgan, a sort-of love interest for Blake if he wasn't so engrossed in his work. Her character is really just a spectator in all the action. Blondell's character is frustratingly always one step behind the audience when figuring out the story, but it is refreshing to see a female character in a gangster movie that is neither moll nor doll. Frank McHugh also has a small part in the movie as McCloskey, an employee of Lee Morgan's. His comic antics are hilarious and are such a change of pace from the rest of the story that it seems his character is from a different movie.

  The director, William Keighley, took a routine gangster picture and built a movie about how the law had been replaced by a lot of talk and that action was needed to scrub away the filth of corruption. He accomplished this not with explicit violence or spectacle, but through a narrative economy developed a story where audience's were not just entertained but also constantly questioning, as they watched the movie, who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.