Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 4 (The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse / Invisible Stripes / Kid Galahad / Larceny, Inc. / The Little Giant / Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film) |  | Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Mary Astor, George Raft
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.98
Buy New: $28.48
as of 3/18/2010 22:08 EDT details
You Save: $31.50 (53%)
New (26) Used (2) Collectible (1) from $28.48
Seller: astro_video
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 7147
Format: Box set, DVD, Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 6
Running Time: 546 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.5 x 3.7
MPN: 1000039311
UPC: 883929023035
EAN: 0883929023035
ASIN: B001ASQ9OC
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE Takes one to know one! Doctor Edward G. Robinson infiltrates a gang to study the ways of hoodlum Humphrey Bogart.LITTLE GIANT He got, see? His bootleg beer biz is tapped out, so Robinson aims to join Santa Barbara?s polo set.LARCENY, INC. Bag the swag! Ex-jailbirds run a luggage shop while attempting to tunnel into the bank next door. Robinson, Broderick Crawford, Jane |
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 10/21/2008 Rating: Nr
Amazon.com
The highlight of Warner's latest gangster collection is the best film since Vol. 1--the 1937 Kid Galahad. This is a terrific picture, among the studio's most satisfying offerings of the '30s, with unlikely co-stars Edward G. Robinson and Bette Davis establishing warm rapport as a fight promoter and his longtime lady friend, and director Michael Curtiz in championship form. Although it's only secondarily a gangster film--boxing and affairs of the heart top the bill--the potential for gangland violence is never far away thanks to Humphrey Bogart's steely malevolence as a rival boxing manager. Also featured are Wayne Morris, ingratiating as the farmboy who becomes Robinson's new fighter; Harry Carey as his trainer; and Jane Bryan--a Warner player who could do sweet and radiant without becoming cloying--as Robinson's young sister. Both she and city girl Davis--known in her social circle as "Fluff"--fall in love with Galahad, and the scene when they deal with that is smartly written (by Seton I. Miller) and played. Vol. 4 is virtually an Edward G. Robinson collection, since he stars in all but one of the movies. The set's other gem is The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), an atypically glossy item with Robinson wonderfully droll as a Park Avenue doctor moonlighting as a jewel thief. He's doing research for a book on criminals, which leads to his becoming "the Professor," the brains behind a gang run by Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart (and including Allen Jenkins, Maxie Rosenbloom, Ward Bond, and Vladimir Sokoloff). Directed by Anatole Litvak, the movie's a milestone of sorts in the career of another filmmaker: co-screenwriter John Huston. Its coziness with criminality as "a left-handed form of human endeavor" anticipates Huston's great The Asphalt Jungle. Also, the picture marks his first association with Bogart, whose stardom he'd help to shape. And Bogart, Robinson, and Trevor would all be reunited under Huston's direction on Key Largo. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse has its dark side; The Little Giant and Larceny, Inc. are broad comedies pure and simple. From the outset, Robinson chafed against his stereotyping in gangster roles, and The Little Giant (1933), as the title suggests, gave him the chance to turn "Little Caesar" on his head. With Franklin D. Roosevelt's election spelling doom for the bootlegging business, "Bugs" Ahern (Eddie G.) retires from mob life to get some culture and mingle with the swells on the polo fields of California. Roy Del Ruth directed, albeit with less pizzazz than usual. Larceny, Inc. (1942) finds newly paroled convicts Robinson and Broderick Crawford taking over a Manhattan luggage store that happens to sit next to a bank that, alas, economic setback may compel them to rob. The movie has its charms--inconveniently for their plans, the guys' business becomes a success and sparks a revival of their Gotham neighborhood--but it's distinctly inferior to the other gangster comedies in which Lloyd Bacon directed Robinson, A Slight Case of Murder (in Vol. 2) and Brother Orchid (Vol. 3). This was the final film Robinson made under his long Warner contract. (Incidentally, the audio commentary on it is bone-crushingly pedantic.) Lloyd Bacon also directed Invisible Stripes (1939), starring George Raft as a not-very-hardened criminal trying to go straight following a prison term. Trouble is, society keeps distrusting him, and when it appears his desperate younger brother (William Holden) might turn to crime, Raft agrees to abet his old prison-mate Humphrey Bogart on some holdups. At a double-feature-ready length of 80 minutes, Invisible Stripes feels like an A-movie struggling to break out of B constraints. There's some excellent stuff, as when garage mechanic Holden and the sweetheart (Jane Bryan) he can't afford to marry cross paths with wealthy revelers out on the town; and Raft and Bogart convincingly have a friendship above and beyond the obligations of genre plotting. But like the underdressed neighborhood street scenes (in contrast to the flavorful busyness customarily observed in Warner gangster pictures), mostly the movie leaves us wanting more. And that includes more of the gang's-all-here supporting cast: Paul Kelly, Marc Lawrence, Joseph Downing, Bert Hanlon, Frank Faylen, et al. Completing Vol. 4 is Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film (2008), a feature-length documentary that serves up solid history and astutely chosen clips, from The Great Train Robbery (1903) through GoodFellas (1990). A small army of commentators holds forth on the gangster film as "the myth for the urban immigrant," and there's lots of anecdotal material about not only icons Cagney, Robinson, and Bogart ("the badder bad guy" brought in as the two previous stars turned legit) but also key directors and writers. Tasty. --Richard T. Jameson
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
 What a great set November 22, 2009
Jonathan Brown (Fair Oaks,, CA USA)
This collection would be worth the price for only two of the movies - Larceny Inc and The Little Giant - where Edward Robinson plays gangster comedy. These are a typical of Robinson but well worth viewing. But then you also get a couple of other good movies of the era and a pretty good compilation about gangster movies. If you like classic movies this is a great set.
Like gangbusters! September 25, 2009
mrliteral
With the first volume of the Warner Bros. Gangster Collection, we got some of the most famous gangster movies of them all, including Little Caesar, Public Enemy and White Heat. By Volume 4, the pickings are a bit slimmer, but there's still enough to make a nice set. Although this is the first set with no James Cagney films, there's plenty of Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in the five movies.
First in the set (chronologically) is The Little Giant, one of three comic crime stories with Robinson. In this one, Robinson is an ex-mobster who wants to go legit: this involves going to California and hobnobbing with the rich. It also gets him entangled with some con artists, but they don't seem to realize exactly who they're trying to swindle. Mary Astor also stars.
Kid Galahad has Robinson as a boxing promoter who turns a clean cut bellhop into a championship fighter. Bogart is a rival promoter who is not above a bit of bribery to get his way, and Bette Davis plays Robinson's lover. It makes a pretty nice boxing movie, one which would eventually be remade with Elvis in the title role.
The strangely comic The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is the most off-beat of the quintet. Robinson is the title character, a doctor who decides to study crime by becoming a criminal, first as a catburglar and then as a leader of a gang of thieves. Bogart is the man who Robinson usurped and Claire Trevor is a sympathetic fence. The conclusion is unexpected, especially in an era when the Production Code prevailed.
Invisible Stripes is the one film without Robinson. In it, George Raft is an ex-con trying to go straight, only to find it almost impossible to get a legitimate job. William Holden plays his ambitious brother who will also follow the criminal path if Raft can't save him, and Bogart is Raft's friend, another ex-con.
The final movie, Larceny, Inc. has Robinson as an ex-con who plans an elaborate heist of a bank. He buys the luggage store next door and plans on tunneling through to the vault. Despite his best efforts, however, the luggage store becomes a success and he becomes a neighborhood hero. Even as Robinson's desire for crime diminishes, Anthony Quinn is around to make sure the heist takes place.
While it cannot compare with Volume 1, this collection is still a very nice set. All the movies come with the "Warner Night at the Movies" feature that provides a preview, newsreel, short subject and cartoon from the same year as the movie. Also, each film has a commentary track, and there is a bonus disc with a feature length documentary on Gangster Films. All-in-all, this is another gem.
a must own dvd set August 15, 2009
S. Wellard (Celebration, FL United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
wow all three volumes are great and the price not so bad, to me the older movies rock and has more style to them, these ganster movies are so cool, So i say get all four Volumes, while you can sure volume 4 has public enemy but still a great deal go for it i say i love them all
if you are a collector hurry up volume 4 is going soon
 Volume#4-Heavy on Edward G....see? July 29, 2009
Robert Badgley (London,Ontario,Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The final volume of this series finally clocks in and it is heavy on the Edward G.Robinson,and that is definitely a good thing.I am glad Warner's has put these titles out there for our enjoyment and re-assessment of his considerable acting talents.
"The Amazing Dr.Clitterhouse",released in July of /38(4-4 1/2 stars),stars Edward G.Robinson as Dr Clitterhouse.He is a well educated and spoken physician/surgeon in the city with a flourishing practice.But the good doctor,as the picture opens,has just committed his fourth robbery by heisting some jewels out of the upstairs safe of a friends home.The doctor has immersed himself into criminology,specificially the study of criminals,their behaviour and reactions of same.The fence he finds for his takings is one Joe Keller(Claire Trevor) and her head man Rocks Valentine(Bogart).He ingratiates himself into Joe's favour and he joins the gang for a period of six weeks to study them in depth for his research and an eventual book;he does blood work,takes blood pressure readings and their reactions to light,stress,etc.Rocks doesn't like Clitterhouse and tries at one point to kill him;unsuccessfully.The six weeks come and go and the doctor leaves but Rocks learns the doctors location,confiscates his research and wants to use his office as his front.Clitterhouse is backed into a corner and kills Rocks.He is found out and put on trial.With a top lawyer friend for his defense,and in spite of almost blowing his own case,the doctor gets off with an insanity plea.
The screenplay co-written by future director John Huston is an engrossing one and Robinson is on top of his game in this film.Bogie also turns in a powerful and menacing performance as Rocks.
"Invisible Stripes",released in December/39,(3 1/2 stars),stars George Raft as Cliff Taylor,William Holden as his brother Tim,and Bogart as Chuck Martin .Cliff and Chuck are jail mates and get released on the same day.Cliff vows to go straight while Chuck is just as determined to go back to crime.Cliff finds the life of an ex-con a tough one,with very few people willing to give him a break.Brother Tim longs to give he and his sweetheart a decent life but can't.Cliff ends up back into crime thanks to the help of his old pen mate Chuck,to make some easy dough.When he has enough he quits.But after a botched robbery Chuck hides out in Tims new business and gets him implicated with the gang.He's arrested and Cliff has no choice but to confront Chuck then go back to jail and force his brother to tell the police the real story.When he returns to try and help Chuck out of his jam both get caught in the pursuing gangs gunfire and get killed.
This film is an enjoyable one with Raft doing a nice turn as the big brother and Bogie turns on the menace as Chuck.This was only Holden's second major screen appearance;another star on the rise.
"Kid Galahad",released in May/37,(3 1/2-4 stars),
stars Edward G.Robinson as fight owner Nick Donati.His right hand "man" is Louise Phillips(Bette Davis).Together for years,they have owned,promoted,trained and fought several potential fighters but none have gotten very far.One day during a party one Ward Guisenberry(Wayne Morris),a new bellhop,comes into their lives.Showing potential Nick trains the now named,Kid Galahad,towards becoming the next world champion;something Nick and Louise have always wanted.The Kid develops a crush on Louise but she keeps things strictly business.Over time while Louises' affection turns to love it is too late as the Kid has fallen in love with Nick's sister.The Kid goes on to a title bout with his rival Chuck McGraw(William Haade) managed by Turkey Morgan(Bogart).Nick double crosses Turkey on the betting and the bout and when the Kid wins Turkey is out for blood.Both Turkey and Nick die in a shoot out.
A pleasant film with Robinson turning in another boffo performance along with Bogie,playing that menacing thing to a tee.
"Larceny,Inc.",released in May/42(3 1/2-4 stars),stars Edward G.Robinson as "Pressure Maxwell",a just released con who is smart and a natural born salesman.While in the "jug" Pressure was asked by fellow con Leo(Anthony Quinn) if he wanted to go in on a bank job with him when he got out.Pressure said no as he was going straight and all was forgotten.Pressure,with his two sidekicks Weepy(Ed Brophy) and Jug(Broderick Crawford),attend the very same bank Leo approached Pressure about to ask for a legitimate loan.They refuse and he gets angry.He buys a luggage shop next door whose basement backs onto the banks' vault.They start digging but continually get interrupted either by salesmen or legit customers.Leo makes a jail break and finds Pressure and the boys muscling in on his plan.Leo gets through to the vault but is apprehended by the cops trying to esacpe.All ends well with popular Pressure now a legitmate and well loved local business man with many lofty plans.
"Larceny,Inc" has gotten alot more airplay on TV in recent years because the time takes place around Christmas.Jane Wyman stars as a ward of Pressures',Jack Carson is Jane's beau and watch for a young Jackie Gleason as the soda jerk in his sixth film.
The last film is "The Little Giant",released in May/33(3 stars),and it stars Edward G. as Bugs Ahearn,a Chicago beer baron whose job comes to an end as swiftly as Prohibition does.He quits it and moves west with his good pal Al(Russell Hopton).There they check into the fanciest hotel($45 a day!)as Bugs seeks out the hoi poloi.But he soon finds he continually gets nothing but the high hat from everyone.When he leaves one Polly Cass(Helen Vinson) finally steps forward to put her claws into him.In fact before the film is through the entire family has gotten into the act of fleecing Bugs.His father does the coup de gras when he sells him a fraudulent bond company lock,stock and barrel.When he realizes he's been taken,Bugs recalls the old gang who come out and put the squeeze on the entire Cass family to get his money back.Bugs falls for the keeper of the house he retained,one Ruth Wayburn(Mary Astor) as they head off to better things.
This film unfortunately plods along at a most stodgy pace and it doesn't get interesting until the last 20 minutes.By then it's too late to get the bad taste from the previous minutes,out of your mouth.However the film does have a memorable quote though;Bugs shows Al a painting-"Have you ever seen anything like it?","No,not since I stopped using cocaine".
The last DVD in this set consists of a 2008 Warners documentary called "Public Enemies-The Golden Age of the Gangster Film".It is about 105 minutes long and contains a mini history lesson both on film itself and the origins and subsequent rise of the gangsters genre of films.To some much of the information contained is well known but to others it will serve as a kind of gangsters-101 course that is well worth taking a look at.The film clips used date all the way back to the late 1890s,through the silent era and forward and are wonderful to see;many of them in their original tint.I had never seen "The Great Train Robbery" that way and it was fascinating.There are a myriad of well known and lesser known film critics on board and extensive interviews with many of the old films' writers,directors and actors.Also included are four Warners cartoons spanning 20 years from 1933 to 1953,all in good condition.However,if I had had my druthers,I would have liked another movie in this set than this documentary,as there are no shortage of Warner's films like these that could have been included in its' stead.
Technically all the films,like the previous sets,have been remastered well and are generally crisp and clean.The sets all include a myriad of extras including trailers for the movies and others,lots of vintage cartoons,vintage newsreel clips and shorts(some great stuff here) and the usual commentary by this critic and that.
One last note.Watching these films will have brought to your attention many actors you will have seen either repeatedly in them and/or in other things in later years.Names such as:Marc Lawrence,Jane Bryon,Tully Marshall,Dick Foran,Ward Bond,Henry Travers,Cecil Kellaway,Charles Lane,George E.Stone,Arthur Byron,Henry O'Neil,Leslie Fenton,Frank McHugh,Arthur Kennedy,Barton MacLaine,Victor Jory,Regis Toomey,Ed Pawley,Sterling Holloway, and so many,many more.Many of these actors would go on to more exposure in later years in television,while others would remain just in the movie business.All are stand outs as solid supporting players for the bigger stars through many,many years working in Warners and other studios.Seeing the same actors in different projects over the years was one of the things that got me interested in movies when I was young.Watching them,getting to know who they were and getting to know more about them.If YOU have an interest in movies old or new,this is a great way to get started.May I respectfully suggest you look up these people either in books or on the internet.Without good talent in the background,there is no talent in the foreground.
amazing collection and commentary December 8, 2008
Read On (miami,, florida, usa)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed, and was often enchanted, by this much needed collection, and the learned commentary that made me feel as if I'd just taken a terrific class in film history, theory, and the evolution of the genre. I'm no film scholar, but I know what I like.....and this was great. Especially noteworthy was the commentary by Art Simon and Robert Sklar, who's insights about Kid Galahad, one of my favorite movies, made it all fresh again.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
|
|
|
