The Roaring Twenties 4K 02/24/24

It’s all about James Cagney — his every expression commands our attention. Writer Mark Hellinger recaps a decade of gangster tropes in a Cliff’s Notes tour through the underworld racketeering of the Prohibition years. The message is that Crime Does Not Pay, yet audiences love Cagney’s reluctant mobster, carefully adjusted to sidestep Production Code no-nos. Frank McHugh is once again the happy sidekick and Humphrey Bogart a rat, but the film’s heart belongs with the unsung Gladys George. Director Raoul Walsh finds the poetry in a Big Shot’s downfall: it’s both sentimental and spectacular in 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
02/24/24