The Warner Gangsters Collection - Volume 1 (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties) DVD

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The Warner Gangsters Collection - Volume 1 (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties)
Starring: Priscilla Lane, Gladys George Director: Michael Curtiz Rating: Not Rated




		R1: Will only play on North American Region 1 or multi-region DVD players.


		(Front Cover)
		Generally ships within 3-5 days
			£34.99

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The original Classic Gangsters flicks of the black and white era from Warner Brothers Studios in this Exclusive 6-Disc Box Set.

Angels With Dirty Faces(1938)
Two friends who grew up together in the slums of New York City take divergent paths as adults: one becomess a priest, the other a gangster. Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA) directs James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Pat O'Brien in one of the greatest gangster melodramas made during the Hollywood studio era. William "Rocky" Sullivan (Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (O'Brien), partners in mischief as boys, are separated when only Jerry is fast enough to get away from the cops after the duo steals fountain pens from a railroad car. Rocky, refusing to give the name of his friend, is sent off to a reform school where he falls under the influence of criminal elements. The grown-up Rocky's triumphant return to the neighborhood complicates the efforts of Jerry, now a parish priest, to keep a local group of boys (the Dead End Kids) out of trouble. When the gang begins to idolize Rocky, Connolly fears his good works may come to nothing. Meanwhile, Rocky vies for control of the criminal rackets in the neighborhood with mob boss Mac Keefer (George Bancroft) and a corrupt, double-crossing lawyer, James Frazier (Bogart).Curtiz's taut, suspenseful, yet suprisingly sensitive handling of the gritty urban morality play turned ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES into the first unqualified masterpiece of his stunningly prolific career. The archetypal gangster thriller, brimming with the magnetism and explosive dramatic energy supplied by the three male leads, was nominated for three Academy Award Nominations: Best Director, Best Actor (Cagney), and Best Original Story. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

Little Caesar (1930)
Bandelli moves to the big city with partner in crime Joe Massara and becomes a member of Sam Vettori’s Mafia gang. In spite of the urgings of pretty girl Olga Strassoff to quit the mob, Rico quickly becomes the head of the Vettori gang and with a couple of quick kills scares mob boss Arnie Lorch back to Detroit. Bandelli, dubbed Little Caesar by the press, is known as a boss in his own right, but what goes up must come down in this tale of excessive hubris. With its focus on character flaws instead of plot devices, LITTLE CAESAR is the mother of the modern gangster flick. Edward G. Robinson stars as Enrico Bandelli in the role that made him a household name. Bandelli moves to the big city with partner in crime Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and becomes a member of Sam Vettori’s Mafia gang. In spite of the urgings of pretty girl Olga Strassoff (Glenda Farell) to quit the mob, Rico quickly becomes the head of the Vettori gang and with a couple of quick kills scares mob boss Arnie Lorch back to Detroit. Bandelli, dubbed Little Caesar by the press, is known as a boss in his own right, but what goes up must come down in this tale of excessive hubris. At the time of its release, the stacatto sound design for LITTLE CAESAR was leagues ahead of its early talkie contemporaries. But what keeps the film alive is the fine script and the startling performance from Edward G. Robinson. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

The Petrified Forest (1936)
Leslie Howard plays a perfect gentleman--a lonely intellectual in search of meaning. When he lands in a deserted café, he finds what he's looking for in the form of young Bette Davis, whose character yearns for the artistic climate of gay Paris. But both Howard and Davis are in for a bumpy ride when dangerous gangster played by Humphrey Bogart takes over, holding up the joint at gunpoint. 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. As trapped as his captives, Mantee admits: "It looks like I'll spend the rest of my life dead." The Petrified Forest, Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 Broadway success about survival of the fittest in the modern world, hit the screen a year later with Leslie Howard (Squier) and Humphrey Bogart (Mantee) magnificently recreating their stage roles and Bette Davis (Gabby) ably reteaming with her Of Human Bondage co-star Howard. Sherwood initially 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 Bogey's brilliant movie career in The Petrified Forest. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

The Public Enemy (1931)
In William Wellman's classic crime film THE PUBLIC ENEMY, James Cagney does a star turn as Tom Powers, a trouble-ridden individual who rises from the position of cheap thug to that of a powerful Prohibition gangster. When his best friend is murdered, Powers self-destructively seeks deadly retaliation. He picks fights. He slaps women around. He roughs up speakeasy owners and tells them whom they'll get their hooch from and how much they'll order. Fists, kisses, and guns are the only things Tom knows. He eventually gets promoted to become the muscleman of mobster Nails Nathan (Leslie Fenton). But Tom's violent acts are about to catch up with him. After Tom guns down a cop, he's on the run. Later, thugs dump him, beaten, on the doorstep of his estranged and horrified family. It's only then that Tom realizes his decision to live the gangster life has been an irrevocable and deadly choice. Known as the picture that launched Cagney into stardom, THE PUBLIC ENEMY doesn't hold back from exposing the violence and tedium underscoring this ostensibly sexy life of crime. The screenplay, based on a story entitled BEER AND BLOOD by John Bright and written by Harvey F. Thew, was nominated for an Academy Award. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

The Roaring Twenties (1939)
It's the original drug war and bullets are flying in this classic gangster film. Cagney plays the role of a tough bootlegger who encounters two old army buddies years after the war in which they fought together. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

White Heat (1949)
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring escape from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll robbery. Shortly after the plan goes into effect, things begin to go woefully astray. James Cagney solidified his tough guy persona in this brutal gangster opus about a vicious man who still loves his Ma. Cody Jarrett, the leader of a gang out west, has been busy knocking over banks and holding up trains. Complicating matters some, he has in tow his beloved Ma, his cool blonde beauty, Verna, and a suave double-crossing hood, Big Ed. The feds manage to put Cody behind bars on a minor charge. They then decide to plant an undercover agent in Cody's prison cell to win his confidence and encourage him to spill the beans about his criminal history. After a prison riot, Cody escapes. He leads the police on a chase through a mazelike chemical factory that culminates Cody's life of crime... and Cody insists on going out in his own blaze of glory screaming the immortal line "Finally made it, Ma! Top o' the world!" to his absent dead mother. The Warner Brothers GANGSTERS Collection

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