SALE! We're having a gangster movie clearance sale! With new film noir models coming down the line, we have to liquidate our stock--all tommyguns, speakeasies, and heavy-handed moralistic endings are slashed and priced to move. Just come on down to The Roaring Twenties, located right at the end of the decade in which the genre ripened--back when a grapefruit was never just a grapefruit and before guilt was deposed onto style. Our selection is second to none: the whole decade is at your fingertips, recalled with swooning nostalgia and a wink-nudge in its nods to the Hays Office, with the spectacular rise-and-fall flameout that only gangsters can provide. Our knowledgeable staff--consisting of one shifty mug with a giant heater--will be happy to assist you, if he likes your face.
The three faces of crime--morally malleable audience surrogate Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney), goody-goody lawyer type Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn), and demented sociopath George Hally (Humphrey Bogart)--are sharing a foxhole at the start of The Roaring Twenties, dreaming about what they'll do after the war is over. Once they have resumed their lives back home, the rug is pulled out from under the name above the title when Eddie's garage job is given to another man, forcing him first into cabdriving, then into giving the wrong package of the wrong liquid substance to the wrong woman. That woman is speakeasy queen Panama Smith (Gladys George), who, in providing Eddie with his first taste of the underworld, sends him on an upward (downward?) trajectory to bathtub gin giant and lord of crime--much to the worry of Lloyd (roped in against his better judgement as loophole-lawyer) and the annoyance of covetous George.
The action is peppered with many, many montages detailing the sins and depravities of the Jazz Era, allegedly to our horror but actually to our delight. Though the Crash of '29 enforces the Production Code, turning the Depression into karmic retribution for the naughtiness of the preceding decade, there is much wistful longing for not only such a wild and lawless era, but also the wild and lawless genre that resulted from its debauchery. Even if James Cagney gets all the moral outs we need to enforce our unambiguous identification (displacing the nastiness onto a pre-stardom Bogie), what we're really there for is to see Cagney cold-cock two guys at once and look damned good doing it. Rest assured that a hail-of-bullets finale is definitely in the cards for our hero regardless of his eventual demotion to cabbiedom again.
Raoul Walsh renders the saga in his genial roughhousing style and in his capacity for blasé indifference at the most dastardly of acts. This gives the film an inviting, come-on-in-the-whiskey's-fine tone that adds up to a comfortable, guilt-free vicarious experience bolstered by Cagney's zesty live-wire intensity, to say nothing of his ability to make the most innocent of lines crackle with imminent violence. He clearly enjoys the well-meaning irresponsibility of the character, and we grow to like that about him. All this, in spite of the persistent irritation of the Puritans trying to spoil the party. But while the censors insisted that no bad deed shall go unpunished, the producers guarantee you the best possible bad deeds that money can buy--just before they go out of style.
Presentation is a must at Warner Warehouses, so our DVD release of The Roaring Twenties is of the finest quality. The 1.33:1 image is crisp, sharp, and subtle in its black-and-white shadings; impurities of both the digital and celluloid variety are, impressively, a non-factor. The 1.0 Dolby mono sound is equally fine, neither artificially enhanced to the point of tinniness nor completely untouched and thus full of defects. It strikes the balance between restoration and revision, bringing the savings back to you. Extras run as follows:
Commentary with Dr. Lincoln Hurst
For long passages, the genial but repetitive Dr. Hurst does nothing except explain the plot of a film we've presumably just watched. While some interesting tidbits about the performers surface, particularly concerning the posse formed by Cagney and various other Irish character actors, Hurst's penchants for overstatement and sweeping generalization (Prohibition is "one of the two or three biggest mistakes in American history") wear a tad.
The Roaring Twenties: The World Moves On (17 mins.)
This is more like it. A rogue's gallery of film academics and specialists (including Andrew Sarris, Eric Lax, and Martin Scorsese himself) explore the film's origins as a tribute by famed crime journalist Mark Hellinger, not to mention the real-life models for many of the characters and such cast issues as Cagney's increasing weariness with the gangster role--as well as Bogart's increasing annoyance with his second-banana curse.
All of the titles in Warner's new gangster set are optionally prefaced by shorts and newsreels, just as they would've been at the time of theatrical release. These can be viewed separately or as a continuous "night at the movies," and the simulation breaks down thusly:
Introduction by Leonard Maltin (5 mins.)
Who better than that hardened killer Maltin to introduce a gangster film? Here he fills us in on the finer points of the shorts on offer, no doubt immensely improving our appreciation of them.
Trailer: Each Dawn I Die
Framed reporter Cagney goes to jail with killer George Raft; tensions ensue. A great example of studio hyperbole, with choice narration and sloganeering.
Newsreel (2 mins.)
San Francisco's Pageant of the Pacific, the New York World's Fair, and a touring King and Queen of England offer dazzling distraction from gathering war clouds.
Musical Short: All-Girl Review (8 mins.)
A pre-stardom June Allyson is made mayor for a day as women are left to run a nameless metropolis. Their mandate: make the city pretty! Of course it's sexist condescension, but it's so crisp and witty and full of surprises that you're not likely to care. Worth the purchase of The Roaring Twenties by itself.
Comedy Short: The Great Library Misery (11 mins.)
A spin-off of the Grouch Club radio show, this features the crotchety organization reviewing an application to acquire a library card, a process that proves labyrinthine and suitably grouch-making. If a few of the jokes are a little frayed at this late date, the roadblocks to card ownership are pretty funny. Ditto the hapless applicant's annoyed responses.
Cartoon: Thugs with Dirty Mugs (8 mins.)
Tex Avery does a wild tapdance all over the gangster genre, making its inclusion here highly apropos. Dog-faced Ed. G. Robensome slinks across the city in his flexible ride and robs banks in surreal fashion. Some of Avery's most bizarre work, and insanely well preserved, to boot.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover
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