TOUGH GUYS COLLECTION: BULLETS OR BALLOTS / CITY FOR CONQUEST / EACH DAWN I DIE / G-MEN / SAN QUENTIN / ... - DVD review

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.

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.