Tough Guys Collection: Bullets Or Ballots / City For Conquest / Each Dawn I Die / G-Men / San Quentin / ... (DVD)

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In the 1930s and 40s, Warner Bros. had the biggest stable of movie tough guys in the business, most of them little tough guys like Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and George Raft. Since the studio already collected together most of their best tough-guy films in the "Gangsters" box set ("The Public Enemy," "Little Caesar," "Angels With Dirty Faces," etc.) and since the studio seems to have an endless supply of such fare, they have collected together yet another tier of entries, this time called the "Tough Guys Collection." These films may not qualify as quite the bona fide classics contained in the "Gangsters" set, but most of them are gritty and entertaining all the same.

One may purchase the six movies in the "Tough Guys Collection" in the big box or separately, and each movie comes with a similar complement of extras, including Warner Night at the Movies newsreels, short subjects, and cartoons; audio commentaries; new featurettes; and theatrical trailers. For the fan of high-caliber old movies, the collection is another worthy addition to one's library.

Let me tell you briefly about five of the movies and then go into a little more detail about the sixth, my preferred of the bunch. Alphabetically, things start out with "Bullets or Ballots" from 1936, starring Edward G. Robinson as an undercover cop and Humphrey Bogart as a mobster. It's a rather typical but reasonably fast-paced story of big-city racketeering. Next is "City for Conquest" from 1940, starring James Cagney and Ann Sheridan. It's a fairly gushy story of a boxer and the sacrifices he makes, but because it's Cagney, we care. After that is "Each Dawn I Die" from 1939, starring Cagney and George Raft. OK, this one maybe doesn't quite cut it today, a prison picture that is a little too over-the-top, but again there's Cagney, so it's hard to resist. "G-Men" follows, from 1935, again with Cagney, only he's a good guy, a government agent, this time. If you can get past the title, the movie is actually pretty exciting. And there is "San Quentin" from 1937, with Pat O'Brien as the warden of California's famous prison and Bogart as one of its notorious inmates. I'm afraid it's all rather clichéd and probably the weakest picture of the lot.

"A Slight Case of Murder":
Then there is "A Slight Case of Murder" from 1938, starring Edward G. Robinson in a parody of his gangster roles. It was the first of three WB pictures in which Robinson spoofed his own celebrated tough-guy screen persona, the others being "Brother Orchid" (1940) and "Larceny, Inc." (1942). Lloyd Bacon directed all three, and all of them are funny; but "A Slight Case of Murder" has always been my favorite.

"A Slight Case of Murder" begins as Prohibition ends in 1933. Robinson plays mobster Remy Marko (spelled "Marko" throughout the movie on signs and office doors and by the character himself, but spelled "Marco" in the closing credits, no doubt a filmmaker goof). During Prohibition Remy and his mob ran one of the biggest illicit distilleries in the country and made a fortune selling rotgut beer. When Prohibition ends, he decides to go legit and continue selling his brew; only he doesn't drink the stuff himself so he doesn't know how bad it tastes, and none of his gang (who are now "salesmen" for the company) have the guts to tell him how lousy it is. After four years go by, Remy is on the verge of bankruptcy because nobody is buying his beer. It's described as tasting like "bottled shellac." Remy owes the bank $462,000, and they are about to foreclose on his mortgage for the brewery if he doesn't come up with the dough by the next day.

Since the screenwriters (Earl Baldwin and Joseph Schrank) based the movie on a stage play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay, they necessarily restricted its time frame and settings. Most of the movie takes place during a single day and at Remy's country house. He gets the news in the morning that he must come up with the money by the next day or lose the brewery, and he decides to go to the country place to relax and think. Just before Remy and his wife Nora (Ruth Donnelly) leave for the country, their daughter Mary (Jane Bryan) returns from college in Paris, and we find out she has become engaged to a young man named Dick Whitewood (Willard Parker). Dick is very rich but believes he should have a real job if he's to get married, so he's become a policeman, a state trooper.

Remy hates cops.

On their way to the country house, Remy stops by his old orphanage to pick up the toughest kid there to adopt for a month. He choses Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom (Bobby Jordan of the Dead End Kids and Bowery Boys fame), a creepy little mutt who creates his own havoc along the way. The head of the orphanage is Mrs. Cagie, played by Margaret Hamilton, a year before she became the Wicked Witch but looking and sounding very much the same. In her early middle age at the time, she looked older; she always seemed to play women older than she really was; thus, she became ageless.