Pre-Code crime films
Encyclopedia
The era of American film production from the early sound era to the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 is denoted as Pre-Code Hollywood. The era contained violence and crime in pictures which would not be seen again until decades later. Although the Hays office had specifically recommended removing profanity, the drug trade, and prostitution from pictures, it had never officially recommended against depictions of violence in any form in the 1920s. State censor boards, however, created their own guidelines, and New York in particular developed a list of violent material which had to be removed for a picture to be shown in the state. Two main types of crime films were released during the period: the gangster picture and the prison film.
A triumvirate of gangster pictures were released in the early 1930s—Little Caesar
(1931), The Public Enemy
(1931), and Scarface
(1932)—which were built on the template created by the first gangster movie, 1927's Underworld
. All featured the rise and eventual fall of an organized criminal. As described by crime film scholar Jack Shadoian the maxim became, "If the films insist that one can’t win, under that given it’s how you lose that counts." Scarface was the most controversial and violent; the film took nearly a year to reach theaters due to battles with censors. Obviously based on the life of Al Capone
, Scarface and others like it outraged civic leaders who felt that movies were glorifying the lifestyles of criminals.
Stirred into action by the 1930 Ohio penitentiary fire, which resulted in 300 deaths when guards refused to let inmates out of their cells, Hollywood produced movies which depicted the harsh conditions in prisons at the time. The prototype of the prison genre was 1930's The Big House. The picture features future genre staples such as solitary confinement, informers, riots, an escape, and the codes of prison life. Never box office hits, prison pictures failed to attract the female audiences they needed to achieve financial success. The chain gang
films were produced in a similar response to the callous inhumanity of the chain gang system which was prevalent among states in the southern US. The 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
is considered the seminal movie of the genre, and was based on the autobiography
of Robert E. Burns
who was himself a fugitive at the time of the picture's release.
In the early 1900s America was still primarily a rural country, especially in terms of self-identity. D. W. Griffith
’s 1912 film The Musketeers of Pig Alley
is one of the earliest American films to feature urban organized crime. Prohibition's arrival in 1920 created an environment where anyone who wanted to drink had to interact with criminals, especially in urban areas. Nonetheless, the urban crime genre was ignored until 1927 when the film Underworld, which is recognized as the first gangster movie, became a surprise hit. According to the Encyclopedia of Hollywoods entry on Underworld, "The film established the fundamental elements of the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist." Other gangster films such as Thunderbolt
, Lights of New York
, The Racket
, and Doorway to Hell were released to capitalize on Underworld's popularity, with Thunderbolt later described as "a virtual remake" of the film. Motivated by financial gain in an increasingly competitive film market, and motivated by the fact that provocative pictures sold tickets, these movies pushed the boundaries of film violence. Other late 1920s crime films depicted organized crime on Broadway
, and investigated the connection between mobsters and Broadway productions in films such as 1929's Tenderloin
and Broadway
.
The Hays Office had never recommended banning violence in any form in the 1920s—unlike profanity, the drug trade or prostitution—but advised that it be dealt with carefully. New York's censor board was the most active board of any state, reviewing around all but 50 of the country's 1,000–1,300 annual releases. In 1927–8 the violent scenes they most removed were all instances where the gun was pointed at the camera, some instances where guns were pointed "at or into the body of another character", many shots where machine guns were featured, scenes where criminals shot at law enforcement officers, some scenes involving stabbing or knife brandishing (stabbings were considered more disturbing than shootings by audiences), most whippings, several involving choking, torture, or electrocution, and scenes which could be considered educational in their depiction of crime methods. Sadistic violence, and reaction shots showing the faces of individuals on the receiving end of violence were considered especially sensitive areas. The Code later recommended against scenes showing "robbery", "theft", "safe-cracking", "arson", "the use of firearms", "dynamiting of trains, machines, and buildings", and "brutal killings" on the basis that they would be rejected by local censors.
and John Dillinger
. Gangsters like Capone had transformed the perception of entire towns. Capone gave Chicago its..."reputation as the locus classicus of American gangsterdom, a cityscape where bullet-proof roadsters with tommygun-toting hoodlums on running boards careened around State Street spraying fusillades of slugs into flower shop windows and mowing down the competition in blood-spattered garages." Capone appeared on the cover of Time
magazine in 1930. He was even offered seven figure sums by two major Hollywood studios to appear in a film but declined. Dillinger became a national celebrity as a bank robber who eluded arrest and escaped confinement several times. He had become the most celebrated public outlaw since Jesse James
. His father appeared in a popular series of newsreels giving police homespun advice on how to catch his son. Dillinger's popularity rose so fast that Variety joked "if Dillinger remains at large much longer and more such interviews are obtained, there may be some petitions circulated to make him our president." Hays wrote a cablegram to all the studios in March 1934 decreeing that Dillinger should not be portrayed in any motion picture.
In April 1931, the same month as the release of The Public Enemy, Hays recruited former police chief August Vollmer to conduct a study on the effect gangster pictures had on children. After he had finished his work, Vollmer stated that gangster films were innocuous and actually too favorable in their depiction of the police. Although Hays used the results to defend the film industry, the New York State censorship board was not impressed and from 1930 to 1932 removed 2,200 crime scenes from pictures.
One of the factors that made gangster pictures so subversive was that in the difficult economic times of the Depression there already existed the viewpoint that the only way to get financial success was through crime. Many were convinced they would lead to higher rates of juvenile delinquency. The Kansas City Times
argued that while adults may not be affected by these films, they were "misleading, contaminating, and often demoralizing to children and youth." Exacerbating the problem, local theater owners advertised gangster pictures with a singular irresponsibility. Theaters displayed tommy guns and blackjacks
and real-life murders were tied into promotions. The situation reached such a nexus that the studios had to ask exhibitors to tone down the gimmickry in their promotions.
The genre entered a new level following the 1931 release of Little Caesar. The film featured Edward G. Robinson
in a career defining performance as gangster Rico Bandello. Caesar, along with The Public Enemy starring James Cagney
, and Scarface featuring Paul Muni
, were incredibly violent films that created a new type of anti-hero. Driven by the performance of one protagonist, they were considered "actors' vehicles". Nine gangster films were released in 1930, 26 in 1931, 28 in 1932, and 15 in 1933, when the genre's popularity began to subside after the end of Prohibition. The backlash against gangster pictures was swift. In 1931 Jack L. Warner announced that his studio would stop making them, and that he had never let his 15 year old son see one.
decided to make a gangster picture in 1930 after one of his close friends was killed by a bootlegger. He purchased the rights to the novel Little Caesar by Chicago reporter W. R. Burnett for $15,000. Burnett had penned the gangster story after seeing the aftermath of the Capone ordered Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Generally considered the grandfather of gangster films, in Caesar, Robinson as Rico, and his close friend Joe Massara (played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
), move to Chicago. Joe wants to go straight and meets a woman. Rico, however, seeks a life of crime and joins the gang of Sam Vettori, rising to the rank of boss in the crime family. After becoming concerned his friend will betray him, he threatens him, at which point Joe's girlfriend goes to the police. Unable to bring himself to kill Joe and thus eliminate the witness against him, Rico goes into hiding. He is coaxed out by the police who publish that he is a coward to the press, and Rico is shot and killed by the police. As he is dying, he says "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" The film is characterized by its tight, lean narrative, and runs at a brisk pace for its 79 minutes. The Rico character is not portrayed as admirable, and is shown to possess little intelligence. The picture has a simple, obvious storyline and is filmed in brighter images during Rico's triumphant rise, and at night and darkly shot during his fall. Among later film critics, Robinson's performances is frequently cited as the film's saving grace. The role typecast Robinson and led to caricatures from comedians, comic impressionists, and animated Looney Tunes
characters. Originally Robinson was cast in a small role but convinced the film's producer to let him play the lead. Wingate told Hays that he was flooded with complaints from people who saw kids in theaters nationwide "applaud the gang leader as a hero." Joy and Wingate disagreed over whether the film should have been released as it was; Joy argued that "the more ghastly, the more ruthless, the criminal acts, the stronger will be the audience reaction against men of this kind, and organized crime in general." Despite a personal letter from Joy pleading the film's case, Wingate, then head of the New York censor board, extensively edited the film, as did Pennsylvania's board.
Caesar's success inspired Fox's The Secret Six
and Quick Millions
, and Paramount's City Streets
, but the next big Hollywood gangster came from another Warner Brothers picture.
William Wellman's The Public Enemy was released by Warner Brothers the following year and features another career defining performance, this time by James Cagney. It was adapted from the unpublished novelette Beer and Blood written by John Bright, and adapted for the screen by Kubec Glasmon and Bright. Enemy takes place from 1909 until 1920. The film is similar to the template set in Caesar in that it follows Tom Powers (Cagney) from his rise to his eventual fall in the world of crime. Cagney's character contrasts his puritanical brother who wants him to go straight and their mother, who is at the center of the conflict between her two sons. Tom Powers is egotistical, amoral, heartless, and extremely violent. The most famous scene in the picture is referred to as the "grapefruit scene"; when Cagney is eating breakfast, his girlfriend angers him, so he cruelly shoves half of a grapefruit in her face. The scene became so famous that for the rest of his life when Cagney dined at a restaurant, other patrons would send his table a grapefruit. Cagney was even more violent towards women in his 1933 gangster film Picture Snatcher
, where he knocks out an amorous woman he is not interested in and violently throws her into the back seat of his car. Enemy was based in part on the Irish gangster Dean O'Banion
, and a scene in which Cagney kills a horse that caused the death of a friend was inspired by a similar real life event where O'Banion underling Louis "Two Guns" Alterie
and others shot a horse. The film's trailer featured no scenes from the movie; it merely contained a warning of the picture's intensity and showcased a gun being fired at the camera. Zanuck also produced Enemy, and was heavily involved in the film's production. He aimed for a movie where the characters were not just immoral, but free of morals, and devoid of conscience. When he showed the film to MGM's Irving Thalberg
, Thalberg remarked "that's not a motion picture. It's beyond a motion picture." While Wingate conceded that the film "was a story that needed to be told", other states were less convinced. Maryland and Ohio cut the grapefruit scene. All states cut a scene where Powers sleeps with a gang den mother while drunk, then slaps her when he wakes up and realizes she took advantage of him.
Public Enemy was a massive box office success, and helped the financial fortunes of Warner Brothers which was still operating in the red at the time. This embarrassed Hays who had remarked at the film's opening that "the greatest of all censors—the American public—is beginning to vote thumbs down on the "hard-boiled" realism in literature and on the stage which marked the post-war period."
and starring Paul Muni as Tony Comante, the film is based on the life of Al Capone. When the film begins, Comante works for Johnny Lovo but is unhappy being a subordinate, and is attracted to Lovo's girlfriend Poppy. He has a deep love for his promiscuous sister, who he expects to remain chaste, which has often been deemed incestuous. Lovo warns Comante to leave the North Side alone as it is controlled by a rival mob. Comante ignores this warning and begins a series of executions and extortions that result in a war with the North side gang. Comante then takes the gang over from Lovo, at which point Lovo tries to kill him but fails. Comante murders Lovo and Poppy becomes his girl. When Comante finds his missing sister in a hotel room with his closest friend, the coin flipping gangster Guino Rinaldo (played by George Raft
), he goes into a rage and kills Rinaldo. After he finds out that they had become married and wanted to surprise Comante he becomes despondent. The film ends with first Comante's sister then Comante being gunned down by police at his home.
The production of Scarface was troubled from the start. The Hays office warned Howard Hughes
, the film's producer, not to make the film. He ignored their pleas telling Hawks: "Screw the Hays Office. Start the picture and make it as realistic, as exciting, as grisly as possible." When the film was completed in late 1931, the Hays office demanded numerous changes, including a conclusion where Comante was captured, tried, convicted, and hung, and demanded the film carry the subtitle Shame of a Nation. Hughes sent the picture to numerous state censorship boards, saying that he hoped to show the film was made to combat the "gangster menace". After failing to get the film past the New York State censor board (then headed by Wingate) even after the changes, Hughes decided to release the movie in a version close to its original form. When other local censors refused to release the edited version, the Hays Office sent Jason Joy around to ensure them that the cycle of gangster films of this nature was coming to an end.
Scarface provoked outrage mainly due to its unprecedented violence, but also because of its shifts of tone from serious to comedic. Dave Kehr
, writing in the Chicago Reader, said that the film blends "comedy and horror in a manner that suggests Chico Marx let loose with a live machine gun." In one scene, Comante is inside a cafe while a torrent of machine gun fire from the car of a rival gang is headed his way. His bumbling assistant, following orders from Comante, keeps trying to answer the phone instead of ducking even after the gangsters make several passes by the cafe. After the barrage is over, Comante picks up a tommy gun
one of the mobsters dropped, and exhibits child like wonder and unrestrained excitement over the new toy. Civic leaders became furious that gangsters like Capone (who was also the blatant inspiration for Little Caesar) were being applauded in movie houses all across America. Some of the biographical details that were used for Muni's character in Scarface were so obviously taken from Capone, and the detail so close, that it was impossible not to draw the parallels. Capone sent several member of his gang to threaten screenwriter Ben Hecht
, but Hecht was able to convince them the picture was based on other gangsters. When Scarface was released however, Capone adored the film, and purchased a personal copy. The film remained out of circulation, until Hughes death in 1980. Universal then re-released the picture, but some scenes from the film's original cut are lost.
In The Big House Robert Montgomery
plays a squirmy inmate who is sentences to six years after committing vehicular manslaughter while under the influence. His cell mates are a murderer played by Wallace Beery
and a forger played by Chester Morris
. The picture features future staples of the prison genre such as solitary confinement, informers, riots, visitations, an escape, and the codes of prison life. The protagonist, Montgomery, ends up being a loathsome character, a coward who will sell anyone in the prison out to get an early release. The film was banned in Ohio, the site of the deadly prison riots that inspired it. Numbered Men, The Criminal Code
, Shadow of the Law
, Convict's Code
, and others, from no less than seven studios, followed. However, prison films only appealed to men, and had weak box office performances as a result. Studios also produced children's prison films which addressed the juvenile delinquency problems of America in the Depression. The Mayor of Hell for instance, featured kids killing a murderously abusive reform school overseer without retribution.
magazine had published Burns' work over six issues, and it was released as a book in January 1932. Decorated veteran James Allen (Paul Muni) returns from World War I a changed man, and seeks an alternative to the tedious job that he left behind. He travels the country looking for construction work. His ultimate goal is to become involved in construction planning. Allen follows a hobo he met at a homeless shelter into a cafe, taking him up on his offer of a free meal. When the hobo attempts to rob the eatery, Allen is charged as an accessory, convicted of stealing a few dollars, and sentenced to ten years in a chain gang. The men are chained together and transported to a quarry to break rocks every day. Even when unchained from each other, shackles remain around their ankles at all times. Allen convinces a large black prisoner who has particularly good aim to hit the shackles on his ankles with a sledgehammer to bend them. He removes his feet from the bent shackles, and in a famous sequence, escapes through the woods while being chased by bloodhounds. On the outside he develops a new identity and becomes a respected developer in Chicago. He is blackmailed into marriage by a woman he does not love who finds out his secret. When he threatens to leave her for a young woman he has fallen in love with, she turns him in. His case becomes a cause célèbre
, and he agrees to turn himself in under the agreement that he will serve 90 days and then be released. He is tricked however, and not freed at the agreed upon time. This forces him to escape again, and he seeks out the young woman, telling her that they cannot be together because he will always be hunted. The films end with her asking him how he survives, and his ominous reply from the darkness; "I Steal".
Although based on reality, Chain Gang changes the facts slightly to appeal to Depression era audiences by making Allen's return home one to a country that is struggling economically, even though Burns returned to the roaring twenties. The film's bleak, anti-establishment ending shocked audiences. Laughter in Hell, a 1933 film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Pat O'Brien
, was inspired in part by I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. O'Brien plays a railroad engineer who kills his wife and her lover in a jealous rage, and is sent to prison. The dead man's brother ends up being the warden of the prison and torments O'Brien's character. O'Brien and several others revolt, killing the warden and escaping. The film, which is lost
, drew controversy for its lynching
scene in which several black men were hung. Reports vary if the blacks were hung alongside other white men, or by themselves. The New Age
(an African American weekly newspaper) film critic praised the filmmakers for being courageous enough to depict the atrocities that were occurring in some southern states.
A triumvirate of gangster pictures were released in the early 1930s—Little Caesar
Little Caesar (film)
Little Caesar is a 1931 Warner Bros. Pre-Code crime film. It tells the story of a hoodlum who ascends the ranks of organized crime until he reaches its upper echelons. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film stars Edward G. Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. The story was adapted by Francis Edward...
(1931), The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy is a 1931 American Pre-Code crime film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America...
(1931), and Scarface
Scarface (1932 film)
Scarface is a 1932 American gangster film starring Paul Muni and George Raft, produced by Howard Hughes, directed by Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson, and written by Ben Hecht based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Armitage Trail...
(1932)—which were built on the template created by the first gangster movie, 1927's Underworld
Underworld (1927 film)
Underworld is a 1927 silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg.-Plot:Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.-Cast:* George Bancroft as "Bull" Weed* Evelyn Brent as "Feathers"...
. All featured the rise and eventual fall of an organized criminal. As described by crime film scholar Jack Shadoian the maxim became, "If the films insist that one can’t win, under that given it’s how you lose that counts." Scarface was the most controversial and violent; the film took nearly a year to reach theaters due to battles with censors. Obviously based on the life of Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, Scarface and others like it outraged civic leaders who felt that movies were glorifying the lifestyles of criminals.
Stirred into action by the 1930 Ohio penitentiary fire, which resulted in 300 deaths when guards refused to let inmates out of their cells, Hollywood produced movies which depicted the harsh conditions in prisons at the time. The prototype of the prison genre was 1930's The Big House. The picture features future genre staples such as solitary confinement, informers, riots, an escape, and the codes of prison life. Never box office hits, prison pictures failed to attract the female audiences they needed to achieve financial success. The chain gang
Chain gang
A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work, such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone...
films were produced in a similar response to the callous inhumanity of the chain gang system which was prevalent among states in the southern US. The 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a Pre-Code crime/drama film starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted convict on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. The film was written by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes from Robert Elliott Burns's autobiography, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain...
is considered the seminal movie of the genre, and was based on the autobiography
I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang
I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang is a book written by Robert Elliott Burns in 1932 and published by Grosset & Dunlap.The book tells the story of Burns' imprisonment on a chain gang in Georgia in the 1920s, his subsequent escape and the furor that developed...
of Robert E. Burns
Robert Elliott Burns
Robert Elliott Burns was a World War I veteran who gained notoriety after escaping from a Georgia chain gang and writing his memoirs exposing the cruelty and injustice of the chain gang system.-Biography:...
who was himself a fugitive at the time of the picture's release.
Early crime films
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
’s 1912 film The Musketeers of Pig Alley
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a 1912 American short drama film credited as the first gangster film in history. It is directed by D. W. Griffith and written by Griffith and Anita Loos. It is also credited for its early use of follow focus, a fundamental tool in cinematography.The film was released...
is one of the earliest American films to feature urban organized crime. Prohibition's arrival in 1920 created an environment where anyone who wanted to drink had to interact with criminals, especially in urban areas. Nonetheless, the urban crime genre was ignored until 1927 when the film Underworld, which is recognized as the first gangster movie, became a surprise hit. According to the Encyclopedia of Hollywoods entry on Underworld, "The film established the fundamental elements of the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist." Other gangster films such as Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt (1929 film)
Thunderbolt is a 1929 proto-noir which tells the story of a criminal, facing execution, who wants to kill the man in the next cell for being in love with his girlfriend. It stars George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Tully Marshall and Eugenie Besserer....
, Lights of New York
Lights of New York (1928 film)
Lights of New York was the first all-talking feature film, released by Warner Brothers and directed by Bryan Foy. The film, which cost only $23,000 to produce, grossed over $1,000,000. It was also the first film to define the crime genre...
, The Racket
The Racket
The Racket is an American crime film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Thomas Meighan, Marie Prevost, Louis Wolheim, and George E. Stone...
, and Doorway to Hell were released to capitalize on Underworld's popularity, with Thunderbolt later described as "a virtual remake" of the film. Motivated by financial gain in an increasingly competitive film market, and motivated by the fact that provocative pictures sold tickets, these movies pushed the boundaries of film violence. Other late 1920s crime films depicted organized crime on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, and investigated the connection between mobsters and Broadway productions in films such as 1929's Tenderloin
Tenderloin (film)
Tenderloin is a crime film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Dolores Costello. It was produced and released by Warner Brothers. Tenderloin is considered a lost film, with no prints currently known to exist.-Cast:...
and Broadway
Broadway (1929 film)
Broadway is a 1929 film directed by Pál Fejös from the play of the same name by George Abbott and Philip Dunning. It stars Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Paul Porcasi, Robert Ellis, Merna Kennedy and Thomas E...
.
The Hays Office had never recommended banning violence in any form in the 1920s—unlike profanity, the drug trade or prostitution—but advised that it be dealt with carefully. New York's censor board was the most active board of any state, reviewing around all but 50 of the country's 1,000–1,300 annual releases. In 1927–8 the violent scenes they most removed were all instances where the gun was pointed at the camera, some instances where guns were pointed "at or into the body of another character", many shots where machine guns were featured, scenes where criminals shot at law enforcement officers, some scenes involving stabbing or knife brandishing (stabbings were considered more disturbing than shootings by audiences), most whippings, several involving choking, torture, or electrocution, and scenes which could be considered educational in their depiction of crime methods. Sadistic violence, and reaction shots showing the faces of individuals on the receiving end of violence were considered especially sensitive areas. The Code later recommended against scenes showing "robbery", "theft", "safe-cracking", "arson", "the use of firearms", "dynamiting of trains, machines, and buildings", and "brutal killings" on the basis that they would be rejected by local censors.
Birth of the Hollywood gangster
In the early 1930s, several real life criminals became celebrities. Two in particular captured the American imagination; Al CaponeAl Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
and John Dillinger
John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger, Jr. was an American bank robber in Depression-era United States. He was charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer during a shoot-out. This was his only alleged homicide. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations...
. Gangsters like Capone had transformed the perception of entire towns. Capone gave Chicago its..."reputation as the locus classicus of American gangsterdom, a cityscape where bullet-proof roadsters with tommygun-toting hoodlums on running boards careened around State Street spraying fusillades of slugs into flower shop windows and mowing down the competition in blood-spattered garages." Capone appeared on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine in 1930. He was even offered seven figure sums by two major Hollywood studios to appear in a film but declined. Dillinger became a national celebrity as a bank robber who eluded arrest and escaped confinement several times. He had become the most celebrated public outlaw since Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
. His father appeared in a popular series of newsreels giving police homespun advice on how to catch his son. Dillinger's popularity rose so fast that Variety joked "if Dillinger remains at large much longer and more such interviews are obtained, there may be some petitions circulated to make him our president." Hays wrote a cablegram to all the studios in March 1934 decreeing that Dillinger should not be portrayed in any motion picture.
In April 1931, the same month as the release of The Public Enemy, Hays recruited former police chief August Vollmer to conduct a study on the effect gangster pictures had on children. After he had finished his work, Vollmer stated that gangster films were innocuous and actually too favorable in their depiction of the police. Although Hays used the results to defend the film industry, the New York State censorship board was not impressed and from 1930 to 1932 removed 2,200 crime scenes from pictures.
One of the factors that made gangster pictures so subversive was that in the difficult economic times of the Depression there already existed the viewpoint that the only way to get financial success was through crime. Many were convinced they would lead to higher rates of juvenile delinquency. The Kansas City Times
Kansas City Times
The Kansas City Times was a morning newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, that was published from 1867 to 1990.The morning Kansas City Times, under ownership of afternoon The Kansas City Star, won two Pulitzer Prizes and was actually bigger than its parent when its name was changed to the...
argued that while adults may not be affected by these films, they were "misleading, contaminating, and often demoralizing to children and youth." Exacerbating the problem, local theater owners advertised gangster pictures with a singular irresponsibility. Theaters displayed tommy guns and blackjacks
Baton (law enforcement)
A truncheon or baton is essentially a club of less than arm's length made of wood, plastic, or metal...
and real-life murders were tied into promotions. The situation reached such a nexus that the studios had to ask exhibitors to tone down the gimmickry in their promotions.
The genre entered a new level following the 1931 release of Little Caesar. The film featured Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
in a career defining performance as gangster Rico Bandello. Caesar, along with The Public Enemy starring James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
, and Scarface featuring Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
, were incredibly violent films that created a new type of anti-hero. Driven by the performance of one protagonist, they were considered "actors' vehicles". Nine gangster films were released in 1930, 26 in 1931, 28 in 1932, and 15 in 1933, when the genre's popularity began to subside after the end of Prohibition. The backlash against gangster pictures was swift. In 1931 Jack L. Warner announced that his studio would stop making them, and that he had never let his 15 year old son see one.
Little Caesar
Warner Brothers 28 year old head of production Darryl F. ZanuckDarryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
decided to make a gangster picture in 1930 after one of his close friends was killed by a bootlegger. He purchased the rights to the novel Little Caesar by Chicago reporter W. R. Burnett for $15,000. Burnett had penned the gangster story after seeing the aftermath of the Capone ordered Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Generally considered the grandfather of gangster films, in Caesar, Robinson as Rico, and his close friend Joe Massara (played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
), move to Chicago. Joe wants to go straight and meets a woman. Rico, however, seeks a life of crime and joins the gang of Sam Vettori, rising to the rank of boss in the crime family. After becoming concerned his friend will betray him, he threatens him, at which point Joe's girlfriend goes to the police. Unable to bring himself to kill Joe and thus eliminate the witness against him, Rico goes into hiding. He is coaxed out by the police who publish that he is a coward to the press, and Rico is shot and killed by the police. As he is dying, he says "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" The film is characterized by its tight, lean narrative, and runs at a brisk pace for its 79 minutes. The Rico character is not portrayed as admirable, and is shown to possess little intelligence. The picture has a simple, obvious storyline and is filmed in brighter images during Rico's triumphant rise, and at night and darkly shot during his fall. Among later film critics, Robinson's performances is frequently cited as the film's saving grace. The role typecast Robinson and led to caricatures from comedians, comic impressionists, and animated Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
characters. Originally Robinson was cast in a small role but convinced the film's producer to let him play the lead. Wingate told Hays that he was flooded with complaints from people who saw kids in theaters nationwide "applaud the gang leader as a hero." Joy and Wingate disagreed over whether the film should have been released as it was; Joy argued that "the more ghastly, the more ruthless, the criminal acts, the stronger will be the audience reaction against men of this kind, and organized crime in general." Despite a personal letter from Joy pleading the film's case, Wingate, then head of the New York censor board, extensively edited the film, as did Pennsylvania's board.
Caesar's success inspired Fox's The Secret Six
The Secret Six
For the DC comic book see Secret Six .The Secret Six is a fast-paced 1931 Pre-Code crime film starring Wallace Beery as "Slaughterhouse Scorpio", a character very loosely based on Al Capone, and featuring Lewis Stone, John Mack Brown, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Marjorie Rambeau and Ralph Bellamy. ...
and Quick Millions
Quick Millions
Quick Millions is a 1931 Pre-Code crime film directed by Rowland Brown. The film involves a truck driver and the wealthy woman that he covets, and also features George Raft and Leon Ames in supporting roles.-Cast:...
, and Paramount's City Streets
City Streets (film)
City Streets is a 1931 Pre-Code crime film based upon a story written by Dashiell Hammett, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Gary Cooper, Sylvia Sidney, Paul Lukas and Guy Kibbee.-Plot:...
, but the next big Hollywood gangster came from another Warner Brothers picture.
The Public Enemy
Picture Snatcher
Picture Snatcher is a 1933 Pre-Code drama film starring James Cagney as a gangster who decides to quit to pursue his dream.-Plot:After getting out of prison, Danny Kean shocks the gang he leads by quitting. He wants his first stint in jail to be his last, and he has always dreamed of becoming a...
, where he knocks out an amorous woman he is not interested in and violently throws her into the back seat of his car. Enemy was based in part on the Irish gangster Dean O'Banion
Dean O'Banion
Charles Dean O'Banion was an Irish-American mobster who was the main rival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone during the brutal Chicago bootlegging wars of the 1920s...
, and a scene in which Cagney kills a horse that caused the death of a friend was inspired by a similar real life event where O'Banion underling Louis "Two Guns" Alterie
Louis Alterie
Louis "Two Gun" Alterie , born Leland A. Varain, and aka "Diamond Jack Alterie", was a Californian who became a notorious hitman for the Chicago North Side Gang during the early years of Prohibition.-Early years:...
and others shot a horse. The film's trailer featured no scenes from the movie; it merely contained a warning of the picture's intensity and showcased a gun being fired at the camera. Zanuck also produced Enemy, and was heavily involved in the film's production. He aimed for a movie where the characters were not just immoral, but free of morals, and devoid of conscience. When he showed the film to MGM's Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
, Thalberg remarked "that's not a motion picture. It's beyond a motion picture." While Wingate conceded that the film "was a story that needed to be told", other states were less convinced. Maryland and Ohio cut the grapefruit scene. All states cut a scene where Powers sleeps with a gang den mother while drunk, then slaps her when he wakes up and realizes she took advantage of him.
Public Enemy was a massive box office success, and helped the financial fortunes of Warner Brothers which was still operating in the red at the time. This embarrassed Hays who had remarked at the film's opening that "the greatest of all censors—the American public—is beginning to vote thumbs down on the "hard-boiled" realism in literature and on the stage which marked the post-war period."
Scarface
The most violent and controversial Pre-Code gangster film was undoubtedly Scarface. Directed by Howard HawksHoward Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
and starring Paul Muni as Tony Comante, the film is based on the life of Al Capone. When the film begins, Comante works for Johnny Lovo but is unhappy being a subordinate, and is attracted to Lovo's girlfriend Poppy. He has a deep love for his promiscuous sister, who he expects to remain chaste, which has often been deemed incestuous. Lovo warns Comante to leave the North Side alone as it is controlled by a rival mob. Comante ignores this warning and begins a series of executions and extortions that result in a war with the North side gang. Comante then takes the gang over from Lovo, at which point Lovo tries to kill him but fails. Comante murders Lovo and Poppy becomes his girl. When Comante finds his missing sister in a hotel room with his closest friend, the coin flipping gangster Guino Rinaldo (played by George Raft
George Raft
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...
), he goes into a rage and kills Rinaldo. After he finds out that they had become married and wanted to surprise Comante he becomes despondent. The film ends with first Comante's sister then Comante being gunned down by police at his home.
The production of Scarface was troubled from the start. The Hays office warned Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, the film's producer, not to make the film. He ignored their pleas telling Hawks: "Screw the Hays Office. Start the picture and make it as realistic, as exciting, as grisly as possible." When the film was completed in late 1931, the Hays office demanded numerous changes, including a conclusion where Comante was captured, tried, convicted, and hung, and demanded the film carry the subtitle Shame of a Nation. Hughes sent the picture to numerous state censorship boards, saying that he hoped to show the film was made to combat the "gangster menace". After failing to get the film past the New York State censor board (then headed by Wingate) even after the changes, Hughes decided to release the movie in a version close to its original form. When other local censors refused to release the edited version, the Hays Office sent Jason Joy around to ensure them that the cycle of gangster films of this nature was coming to an end.
Scarface provoked outrage mainly due to its unprecedented violence, but also because of its shifts of tone from serious to comedic. Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr is an American film critic. A critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for many years, he writes a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases, in addition to contributing occasional pieces on individual films or filmmakers.-Early life and education:Dave Kehr did...
, writing in the Chicago Reader, said that the film blends "comedy and horror in a manner that suggests Chico Marx let loose with a live machine gun." In one scene, Comante is inside a cafe while a torrent of machine gun fire from the car of a rival gang is headed his way. His bumbling assistant, following orders from Comante, keeps trying to answer the phone instead of ducking even after the gangsters make several passes by the cafe. After the barrage is over, Comante picks up a tommy gun
Tommy Gun
Tommy Gun may refer to:*Thompson submachine gun or Tommy gun, a submachine gun*"Tommy Gun" , a song by The Clash...
one of the mobsters dropped, and exhibits child like wonder and unrestrained excitement over the new toy. Civic leaders became furious that gangsters like Capone (who was also the blatant inspiration for Little Caesar) were being applauded in movie houses all across America. Some of the biographical details that were used for Muni's character in Scarface were so obviously taken from Capone, and the detail so close, that it was impossible not to draw the parallels. Capone sent several member of his gang to threaten screenwriter Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, but Hecht was able to convince them the picture was based on other gangsters. When Scarface was released however, Capone adored the film, and purchased a personal copy. The film remained out of circulation, until Hughes death in 1980. Universal then re-released the picture, but some scenes from the film's original cut are lost.
Prison films
In contrast to the crumbling social system outside their walls, the prison film portrayed a universe where the state was all powerful and orderly. Sparked by the Ohio penitentiary fire on April 21, 1930 in which guards refused to release prisoners from their cells causing 300 deaths, the films depicted the inhumane conditions in prisons in the early 1930s. The genre was composed of two archetypes: the prison film and the chain gang film. In the prison film, large hordes of men move about in identical uniforms, resigned to their fate, they live by a well defined code. In the chain gang film, Southern prisoners were subjected to a draconion system in the blazing outdoors where they were treated terribly by their ruthless captors. The prototype of the prison genre was 1930's The Big House. 1932's I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is considered the seminal film of the chain gang genre. Although the chain gang film Hell's Highway had beaten Fugitive to the screen two months earlier, it exerted nowhere the influence.In The Big House Robert Montgomery
Robert Montgomery (actor)
Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...
plays a squirmy inmate who is sentences to six years after committing vehicular manslaughter while under the influence. His cell mates are a murderer played by Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
and a forger played by Chester Morris
Chester Morris
Chester Morris was an American actor, who starred in the Boston Blackie detective series of the 1940s.-Career:...
. The picture features future staples of the prison genre such as solitary confinement, informers, riots, visitations, an escape, and the codes of prison life. The protagonist, Montgomery, ends up being a loathsome character, a coward who will sell anyone in the prison out to get an early release. The film was banned in Ohio, the site of the deadly prison riots that inspired it. Numbered Men, The Criminal Code
The Criminal Code
The Criminal Code is a Hollywood crime film, directed by Howard Hawks, based on a play by Martin Flavin with cinematic adaptation by screenwriters Seton I...
, Shadow of the Law
Shadow of the law
Bargaining under the shadow of the law refers to settling cases or making plea bargains in a way that takes into account what would happen at trial. It has been argued that criminal trials resolve such a small percentage of criminal cases "that their shadows are faint and hard to discern."...
, Convict's Code
Convict's Code
- Cast :*Robert Kent as Dave Tyler*Anne Nagel as Julie Warren*Sidney Blackmer as Gregory Warren*Victor Kilian as Bennett*Norman Willis as Russell*Maude Eburne as Mrs. Magruder*Ben Alexander as Jeff Palmer*Pat Flaherty as Sniffy*Carleton Young as Pete Jennings...
, and others, from no less than seven studios, followed. However, prison films only appealed to men, and had weak box office performances as a result. Studios also produced children's prison films which addressed the juvenile delinquency problems of America in the Depression. The Mayor of Hell for instance, featured kids killing a murderously abusive reform school overseer without retribution.
Chain gang films
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which is based on the true story of Robert. E. Burns, is by far the most famous of the early 1930s chain gang films. In the first half of 1931, True Detective MysteriesTrue Detective
True Detective has been the name of several different magazines.The first was an American true crime magazine featuring articles about crime and criminals, created by publisher Bernarr Macfadden in 1924; it's considered the first true crime magazine. Although generally lurid, True Detective did...
magazine had published Burns' work over six issues, and it was released as a book in January 1932. Decorated veteran James Allen (Paul Muni) returns from World War I a changed man, and seeks an alternative to the tedious job that he left behind. He travels the country looking for construction work. His ultimate goal is to become involved in construction planning. Allen follows a hobo he met at a homeless shelter into a cafe, taking him up on his offer of a free meal. When the hobo attempts to rob the eatery, Allen is charged as an accessory, convicted of stealing a few dollars, and sentenced to ten years in a chain gang. The men are chained together and transported to a quarry to break rocks every day. Even when unchained from each other, shackles remain around their ankles at all times. Allen convinces a large black prisoner who has particularly good aim to hit the shackles on his ankles with a sledgehammer to bend them. He removes his feet from the bent shackles, and in a famous sequence, escapes through the woods while being chased by bloodhounds. On the outside he develops a new identity and becomes a respected developer in Chicago. He is blackmailed into marriage by a woman he does not love who finds out his secret. When he threatens to leave her for a young woman he has fallen in love with, she turns him in. His case becomes a cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
, and he agrees to turn himself in under the agreement that he will serve 90 days and then be released. He is tricked however, and not freed at the agreed upon time. This forces him to escape again, and he seeks out the young woman, telling her that they cannot be together because he will always be hunted. The films end with her asking him how he survives, and his ominous reply from the darkness; "I Steal".
Although based on reality, Chain Gang changes the facts slightly to appeal to Depression era audiences by making Allen's return home one to a country that is struggling economically, even though Burns returned to the roaring twenties. The film's bleak, anti-establishment ending shocked audiences. Laughter in Hell, a 1933 film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...
, was inspired in part by I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. O'Brien plays a railroad engineer who kills his wife and her lover in a jealous rage, and is sent to prison. The dead man's brother ends up being the warden of the prison and torments O'Brien's character. O'Brien and several others revolt, killing the warden and escaping. The film, which is lost
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
, drew controversy for its lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
scene in which several black men were hung. Reports vary if the blacks were hung alongside other white men, or by themselves. The New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
(an African American weekly newspaper) film critic praised the filmmakers for being courageous enough to depict the atrocities that were occurring in some southern states.
Sources
- Black, Gregory D. Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. Cambridge University Press 1996 ISBN 0-521-56592-8
- Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press 1999. ISBN 0-231-11094-4
- Grieveson, Lee, Sonnet, Esther, and Stanfield, Peter. Mob culture: hidden histories of the American gangster film. Rutgers University Press 2005 ISBN 0813535573
- Hughes, Howard. Crime Wave: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Crime Movies. I. B. Tauris 2006 ISBN 1845112199
- Izod, John. Hollywood and the Box Office, 1895-1986. Columbia University PressColumbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
1988 ISBN 0231067240 - Leitch, Thomas. Crime Films. Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
2004 ISBN 0-511-04028-8 - Niemi, Robert. History in the Media: Film and Television. ABL-CIO 2006 ISBN 157607952X
- Parkinson, David. History of Film. Thames & Hudson 1996 ISBN 050020277X
- Prince, Stephen. Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968. Rutgers University Press 2003 ISBN 0813532817
- Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood: Social dimensions: technology, regulation and the audience. Taylor & Francis 2004
- Shadoian, Jack. Dreams & dead ends: the American gangster film. Oxford University Press 2003 ISBN 0195142918
- Siegel, Scott, & Siegel, Barbara. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood. 2nd edition Checkmark Books 2004. ISBN 0-8160-4622-0
- Springhall, John. Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta Rap, 1830-1996. Palgrave Macmillan 1999 ISBN 0312213956
- Smith, Sarah. Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to the Dead End Kids. Wiley-Blackwell 2005 ISBN 1405120274
- Turan, Kenneth. Never Coming to a Theater Near You: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Movie. Public Affairs 2004 ISBN 1-58648-231-9
- Vieira, Mark A. Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999. ISBN 0-8109-8228-5
Further reading
- Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration. New York: Columbia University Press 2009. ISBN 0-231-14358-3