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

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Anyway, Remy, his wife, his daughter, and the kid arrive at the country house just minutes after a rival gang has robbed a bookies' armored car of half a million dollars. They went to Remy's place, where one of the five-man gang knocked off the other four, leaving their bodies in an upstairs bedroom. So when Remy and his family arrive, there are four dead bodies upstairs and a murderer creeping around trying to hide the loot.

And that's just the movie's setup. Mayhem is the order of the day in this screwball comedy as Remy throws a party for his friends, the bodies get moved from place to place, the daughter's fiancée policeman shows up, the finance's snooty father shows up, too, the secretive murderer is willing to shoot anybody in sight, and the orphan kid just wants to drink up the beer supply!

Robinson is a kick; he was a terrific actor who could handle almost any kind of role from tough and serious to light and frivolous. He handles the humor well here by playing it straight and letting the dialogue take care of the laughs. But because the movie is a screwball comedy, a lot of the humor derives from the secondary characters. Here is where Allen Jenkins, Harold Huber, and Edward Brophy as Remy's colorful sidekicks come in. If you are at all familiar with the stories of Damon Runyon, you'll know these guys are right out of the pages of the text. You may even recognize Brophy's voice as the mouse in "Dumbo." The voice alone is perfect for the part.

There are probably more outright laughs in the last half of "A Slight Case of Murder" than in most modern comedies you'll find playing at your local multiplex put together, and director Bacon isn't afraid to let a scene develop rather than rush headlong on to the next gag. The movie is worth its price alone or in the big set.

Video:
As usual, with "A Slight Case of Murder" Warner Bros. transferred a good copy of the film to disc at a reasonably high bit rate, probably touching it up a little along the way, resulting in a video presentation that is quite possibly better than anybody has seen it for almost seventy years. The black-and-white contrasts are strong in most scenes, and the definition is sharp. There is a small degree of grain in some shots, but it is very minor, just as there are occasional age and wear flecks, again very minor.

Audio:
There is not a lot to say about the Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural audio reproduction on "A Slight Case of Murder" except that it sounds about the way you would expect it to sound. It's mono, with very little in the way of dynamic or frequency range; but it's fairly clean and clear in the midrange, with just a trace of background noise.

Extras:
There are almost as many minutes of bonus material on "A Slight Case of Murder" as there are for the feature film. Things begin with an audio commentary by film historian Robert Sklar, who provides a good deal of background information about the writer Damon Runyon, the actor Edward G. Robinson, and the Warner studio's involvement with gangster films. His comments are not scene-specific, but they are useful.

Next is a Warner Night at the Movies that attempts to duplicate a typical evening out at the picture show in 1938, starting with a vintage newsreel, then the Oscar-nominated short subject "Declaration of Independence," followed by a vintage Merrie Melodies cartoon, "The Night Watchman," and then a theatrical trailer for the movie "Dawn Patrol."

After all that is a newly made, seventeen-minute featurette, "Prohibition Opens," that includes remarks on the subject by actors Michael Madsen, Talia Shire, Theresa Russell, and various writers and filmmakers. Things conclude with a trailer for "A Slight Case of Murder"; twenty-three scene selections, but no chapter insert; English as the only language choice; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
Given the number of extras contained on each disc, the set might be worth its price just for the cinematic history it presents. The films themselves are like icing on the cake. Still, if I were to choose only one movie from the collection to buy on its own, for me it would be, as I've said, "A Slight Case of Murder." It works as a parody of old gangster movies starring the biggest gangster movie actor of them all, Edward G. Robinson; it works as a screwball comedy of the era; and it remains as funny today as when it was made.

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