Humphrey Bogart: Bogart Era (W/CD)

Starring:Humphrey Bogart
Studio: Music Video Dist.
Product Type: DVD

Customer Reviews:

Another great James Cagney movie.......2007-05-29

This is a superb movie. James Cagney was awesome. Dead end kids are all dead now, I think. Very good old time movie. It actually had a moral to it's story. Today's filmakers and actors should take note.

Great Nostalgia!.......2007-04-16

I purchased this movie for my husband, who collects antique radios. We merely wanted to see the bar-radio. We enjoy all things Art Deco and vintage, particularly 20-40's. We realized that we were really enjoying the movie! It's a bit sappy, but weren't all movies from the era?

A very New York movie .......2007-04-08

(To Kristopher Haines) you asked "What did audiences see in these kids?" Many kids in the northern cities saw themselves, or knew of wise guy tough kids just like the Dead End Kids. They also knew or knew of a 'Father Connelly' who would try and set neighbourhood tough kids on the right path in life.

If you were a New Yorker you might have been similar to one of the kids depicted in this film yourself. In 1938 many actors & actresses in motion pictures were from New York, thus Hollywood made movies with the New York viewing audiences in mind. That's why the movie going public liked their antics.

After the war when the East End Kids evolved into the The Bowery Boys their fan base grew even larger. Today they have a substantial following amongst old movie fans, and yes many of these fans are from the Tri-State area (NY/CONN/NJ), Philly, Boston, Providence, Chicago etc, since those fans related to the Boys growing up, or watching their re-runs on TV.

[[ASIN:630695001X Key Largo/Angels With Dirty Faces]]
The Warner Gangsters Collection (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties)

"Whaddaya Hear, Whaddaya Say?".......2007-03-14

Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) was always a troublesome kid, but what do you expect from a guy who grew up in the slums? The only difference between him and the man who became the preacher (Pat O'Brien) is that Rocky got caught stealing and the preacher didn't. So Rocky went to juvenile detention and graduated to the slammer thanks to his ties to bigshot gangsters. He agreed to take the fall for them at the advice of his lawyer (Humphrey Bogart) at the promise that he'd jump right back in with them when he got out. What a sucker he was.

When Rocky gets out, he finds that his old friends have turned on him and used up his money. He doesn't take lightly to that and uses his intelligence to outsmart them time after time. In the meantime, upon returning home, Rocky meets up with some childhood friends including the preacher and a girl he used to pick on (Ann Sheridan). He also meets the new town hoodlums (The Dead End Kids) and becomes their idol. However, Rocky's life was never destined for a happy ending.

This film is incredibly powerful because it comments on so many modern issues. Is the criminal a victim of his own free-will or of his environment? And in being a criminal, does that make him all bad? Also, the relationships between the characters are great because they're so well established. Cagney is perfect in the role, a street-wise, easy-going guy you can't help but love despite his imperfections. Also notable are the Dead End Kids, especially Leo Gorcey whose strong personality and looks are very similar to Cagney's.

This is an excellent film that transcends the gangster genre.

"Always remember: Don't be a sucker" - Rocky Sullivan.......2007-01-11

This crime/drama concerns two childhood friends that both grew up in Hell's Kitchen back in 1920th. Jerry Connelly (O'Brien) became a parish priest and the other, Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) - the career criminal. The Angels of the title are the neighborhood boys whom Father Jerry tries to save from lives of crime and who have come to idolize the tough, fast, furious and cool guy Rocky. Yes, Cagney's Rocky was a criminal but one could not help rooting for him in every scene of the movie which he stole from the rest of the cast. Cagney is riveting as Rocky. When he talks, you want to listen, when he walks, you want to follow. Who would blame the Dead End Kids for wanting to be like him? Father Jerry does not blame them but he tries his best not to let that happened...

"Angels with Dirty Faces" is a great movie, a true classic that combines an excellent crime movie with the characters like crooked lawyer (Humphrey Bogard) and corrupt politician (George Bancroft) with whom Rocky formed a doomed business alliance and a very human and compelling drama of two best friends, the choices they made, the roads they took and where the roads brought them. Great directing, writing, acting from everyone and absolutely brilliant performance from James Cagney.

4.5/5

Average customer rating:

The Roaring Twenties
Ain't no lull in this joint
In this movie, Bogart proves to be the sneering, sadistic gangster...
Meat and potatoes ganster film
The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties
Starring: James Cagney , Priscilla Lane , Humphrey Bogart , Gladys George , and Jeffrey Lynn
Director: Raoul Walsh , Lloyd French , and Tex Avery
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Public Enemy
Angels With Dirty Faces
White Heat
Little Caesar
The Petrified Forest

ASIN: B0006HBV32
Release Date: 2005-01-25

Amazon.com

Three doughboys--played by James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Jeffrey Lynn--meet in a foxhole in Europe just as World War I is ending. When they return to the States, they are forgotten men, and after Eddie (Cagney) tries in vain to get his old job back, his pal Danny (Frank McHugh) lets him drive his cab at night. A fare asks unwitting Eddie to deliver bootleg liquor, but Prohibition is in full swing and Eddie is arrested and thrown in the slammer. Gallant Eddie won't rat out the woman to whom he delivered the hooch, speakeasy owner Panama Smith, (whiskey-voiced Gladys George). She bails him out and carries a torch for him for the rest of the movie, but he only has eyes for sweet little Jean (Priscilla Lane). Panama introduces Eddie to a life of crime, staking him in the bootleg business. Eddie's grit and bluster suit him perfectly for this existence, and he's soon a success, so he hires Army buddy Lloyd (Lynn) as consigliere, then teams up with George (Bogart), a liquor smuggler who plays a much dirtier game. Racketeering and murder are his methods, and he drags Eddie down with him. When Prohibition ends and the stock market crashes, Eddie loses everything and takes to the bottle himself.

The film is a bit schematic. The three stars are archetypes: Cagney the good boy gone bad, Bogart the bad boy who stays bad, and Lynn the good boy who stays good. Still, it packs quite an emotional wallop--Cagney shows extraordinary range, going from green boy to swaggering gangster to broken man, and Bogart has rarely seemed more purely evil than he does here. He kills for the sheer pleasure of it; it's truly frightening to see. The final scene is a stunning shootout between Cagney and Bogart. With lesser actors this film could be pure hokum. With Cagney and Bogart, it attains catharsis. Laura Mirsky

Customer Reviews:

The Roaring Twenties.......2007-06-21

A breakthrough for director Walsh, this classic boasts electric performances from both Cagney and Bogie. Consistent with most Bogart portrayals from the thirties, his George Hally is a low double-crosser who puts the screws to honorable (in his way) Eddie. Consistent with most Cagney roles, Eddie gets his revenge. "Twenties" is a worthy swan song to the glory days of the gangster picture--and just wait for that immortal closing line of dialogue.

Ain't no lull in this joint.......2007-03-14

Saw this for the first time and it's a crackerjack. Right from Cagney's opening line in the fox hole--"what do you want me to do, knock?"--the movie blasts along. Nearly every scene with Cagney and Bogart is a gem, with the two quintessential screen tough guys sizing each other up and down and sideways. Bogie's great as the bad apple--gets to speak some brilliant lines which he delivers with that trademark malicious twinkle of his. Cagney is great in a different way--everything about Eddie Bartlett is interesting, from the way he walks and talks to the frequent glimpses you get of something a little more heartfelt. Gladys George is magnificent too as Panama Smith and her mostly unspoken allegiance to Cagney hits an astonishing range of notes. And what about the stunning Paul Kelly as Nick Brown? There's a hefty role filled out to hoodlum perfection. I've seen a bunch of Cagneys now and this is hands-down my favourite. Looks, sounds and feels like the real deal to me--a Goodfellas from 1939. Boy that Raoul Walsh made good movies!

In this movie, Bogart proves to be the sneering, sadistic gangster..........2007-01-12

After nearly a decade of concentrating on the gangster period of the twenties, it appeared that Warner Brothers had decided to make one, final glorified kiss-off to the genre in the spectacularly staged "The Roaring Twenties."

Director Raoul Walch was an odd choice for what turned out to be a first-rate action film, for Walsh was not normally a crime-film director... The film contained every possible cliché connected with the era...

Bogart's portrayal was interesting as we watched him coldly murder an ex-army sergeant who had given him a rough time in the service, and then set put to get rid of Jeffrey Lynn, now a successful lawyer working for the district attorney and intent on crushing Bogart's empire...

Cagney, whose energy gave him a panerotic sexual magnetism, was evident with his two relationships which both tend to increase our valuation of Cagney as a person as are the two ladies involved: Priscilla Lane, the innocent whom Cagney helps and loves, and the experienced Gladys George who is evidently devoted to him but never expresses her feelings to him...

This basic relationship between Cagney and the two female characters does not take away the great merit of "The Roaring Twenties"--much more it proves the skill of Raoul Walsh and the writers in deploying conventional elements in an effective and meaningful way...

Meat and potatoes ganster film.......2006-09-20

The last scene is great. Bogart gives one of his best bad guy performances, one of grim humor--his rat is haughty and actually sadistic, taking pleasure in being merciless. Cagney's character in this movie is really amazingly dumb, a bonehead, an unbelievable doofus who goes to prison for bootlegging and doesn't even know what he's doing. Cagney, who individualized each of his characters, plays this one as a humorless, noble, but not very bright guy. He's compelling when the character hits the skids and becomes a boozer. Cagney would have been great in "The Iceman Cometh." This has some of the urban shimmer of another, but much greater late 1930s Cagney gangster picture, "Angels with Dirty Faces"--and is one a relatively few Cagney movies where he plays a gangster. The tired air of this one might have made people think that every one of his flicks was a thug pix. It would be great to see other Cagney pictures of the era on DVD--"The Fighting 69th," and the under-rated comedies "The Bride Came C.O.D." and "The Strawberry Blonde." This one is worth seeing, but it's a triumph of good actors and direction over a bad script.

The Roaring Twenties.......2006-08-30

I'm a James Cagney Fan and this movie was one of my favorites.If you like ganster movies or James Cagney,I strongly suggest you see this movie

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