A Guide to American Crime Films of the Thirties

Recent crime films such as Scarface , the Dirty Harry series, and The Godfather have captured the American imagination, but they owe a large debt to the early crime talkies such as The Public Enemy , Paul Muni’s Scarface and Little Caesar . More than 1000 entries are featured in this reference, with the names of directors, screen writers and major players as well as plot evaluations. For the serious student of crime films, this work provides a comprehensive treatment of the genre. It includes all crime sub-genres (detective, mystery, cops and robbers, and courtroom dramas) in addition to gangster films. The period between the end of the silent (1927) and the general acceptance of the sound film (1929) is often referred to as a transition period. The majority of theatres were not wired for sound, so many films were released in both silent and sound versions. Some added only sound effects or music to the sound track, while others offered only brief segments of sound. The early 1930s marked the end of this transition period and firmly established the sound era. The book pays homage to these early, often crude melodramas. The authors aim to preserve the memories of these films for their own generation and to introduce these works to a new generation.