The Essentials: 10 Classic Gangster Movies

“The Roaring Twenties ” (1939)
Something of a mid-point of the classic era of the gangster picture (eight years after “Little Caesar,” ten years before “White Heat“), “The Roaring Twenties” sees Raoul Walsh take an epic, almost novelistic look at the crime-filled decade that was at that time still in recent memory. It’s a film that, while perhaps not as successful as some of its tighter, more specific competition, has much to recommend it. Based, like “Gangster Squad,” on articles by a journalist (in this case Mark Hellinger), it starts off in the trenches of World War One, as Eddie (James Cagney), George (Humphrey Bogart) and Lloyd (Jeffrey Lynn) meet in a foxhole. They return home, where Eddie and George become bootleggers, while Lloyd is a successful lawyer. Lloyd marries the girl (Priscilla Lane) that Eddie loves, but becomes a target for the increasingly ruthless George, causing Eddie to step up and do the right thing. In its grand sociological sweep (set over a period of years) and divided loyalties, it’s a precursor to later flicks like “Mean Streets” and “Once Upon A Time In America,” and the pairing of Cagney and Bogart — in their last on-screen team up — has plenty of fireworks, even if Lynn is a dull straight-arrow foil for them. In fact, you can sense that director Raoul Walsh is barely interested in him at all; he’s having more fun with his faux newsreels and light-footed camerawork. “The Roaring Twenties” doesn’t quite match the iconic value of some of those that came before and after it, but it’s still absorbing stuff nevertheless.

“Dillinger” (1945)
By 1945, with the Second World War still underway, the studios had mostly turned away from the gangster genre in favor of more comforting, patriotic fare. This left a gap in the market, a gap that B-movie experts Monogram Studios were more than happy to fill. Given the paucity of similar films, and a bigger-than-usual budget for the company (though still small change compared to a studio picture), they were able to attract a decent amount of talent, including screenwriter Philip Yordan (who won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay, the only time that Monogram ever won a nod from the Academy), and familiar faces like Elisha Cook Jr and Edmund Lowe. But in the lead role for their factually fast-and-loose biopic of the legendary bank robber, they went for the imposing figure of Lawrence Tierney, who half-a-century later would get a new lease of life as Joe in Quentin Tarantino‘s “Reservoir Dogs.” And he’s kind of perfect for the lean, pulpy, grimy take on Dillinger’s tale that Yordan and director Max Nosseck came up with, leading a film with few ambitions to be anything other than an unpretentious B-movie, which rattles along being exactly that. That said, it’s also an interesting exercise in resource management (with only $60,000 to spend, Nosseck cannily uses stock footage to add production value), and it ladles on enough atmosphere and quirky character touches that it’ll happily stand alongside any of the other films on this list.

“Force Of Evil” (1948)
While it’s not the most obvious choice when it comes to the plethora of films filled with fedoras, tommy guns and cars with running boards, Abraham Polonsky’s effort is perhaps a bit more subversive than most. Indeed, very few shots are fired in “Force Of Evil” and most curious of all, the man at the hub of criminal empire, is a legitimate lawyer. John Garfield stars as Joe Morse, the legal representative of Ben Tucker, who fronts a respectable and lucrative but illegal numbers racket. Morse has been instrumental in keeping the operation looking above board, and convincing Tucker to rule his operation without resorting to the kind of violence that grabs headlines and police attention. But when Tucker launches a scheme to take a bigger slice of the gambling pie, Morse gets way in over his head, lured by the money he’ll make, and the power he’ll wield. “Force Of Evil” is a slow-burning look at man whose link with organized crime infects him, eventually turning him into the same kind of threatening, pompous and fearsome player he’s loath to be associated with. Garfield carries Joe Morse with an appropriate swagger that hides a frightened vulnerability and as Tucker’s plans begin to go awry, and the police and politicians close in, he desperately tries to hang on to the hood life he’s built, even as it’s exposed to be as crooked as it really is. “Force Of Evil” operates in a morally grey area rare for this kind of movie, where even the everyday citizen who books a bet, or the middle-aged woman who works for a small-time broker, are implicated as part of a bigger problem. Joe Morse is a cautionary tale of what happens when you try to play the big shot under the delusion you’re doing nothing wrong, and can outsmart (or outlawyer) the law.