Warner's Gangster DVDs

[dmolson]

I guess this is probably a long stretch, but thought I'd bring up the latest great classic films release by Warner Bros, their Gangster series of Public Enemy, Little Caesar, The Petrified Forest, The Roaring Twenties, Angels With Dirty Faces and White Heat... There is no straight connection to Welles in these stories, at least not that I can think of. But on at least one, there was the inclusion of some snippets that, although part of the original release, had been cut from repeated prints. Public Enemy had a few scenes shortened/cut thanks to the tougher Hays code-meisters, but they have been restored for the dvd release. It's completely different than the issue of scenes cut from The Stranger or Lady From Shanghai (I won't even mention the holy grail of lost nitrate, TMA), but I'm wondering what was the typical protocol of the studios when scenes were extracted from a director's cut -- were some studios better at preserving such film, or, mostly because of the period and value of the film stock, did they all treat it like a discarded gum wrapper? Certainly there are instances of film stock that has been re-constituted (like the terrific opening to 1930s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde) which have been reborn with the advent of dvd. And studios certainly have discovered that classic films have a value in the new form...
Any ways, I've seen three of the Warners pics and they were stunners -- Cagney was top o' the world when it came to laying it down straight. Kind of wish that he and Welles could have worked together -- I'm thinking of the still shot from some studio lot, where Cagney and Welles in their different studio costumes, listen to clown-faced Jimmy Stewart as he takes a break from 'The Greatest Show on Earth.'

[Harvey Chartrand]

As I recall, Orson Welles was in costume for MAN IN THE SHADOW, James Cagney was in clown makeup for MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES (the story of Lon Chaney) and James Stewart was outfitted for a western (THE MAN FROM LARAMIE). Seeing this picture taken on a Universal International Pictures soundstage, one really gets the sense of artists working in a factory.

[dmolson]

Harvey, thanks for correcting my faulty memory ~ it was kind of an interesting shot of three different mega talents, appearing at ease between busy shooting schedules. Of course, one link between Welles and Cagney could be their often tenuous relations with the studios, although Welles' situation couldn't even be listed as such. Cagney was constantly battling with Warners about the properties it had thrown him in to, typecasting often to the extent that Cagney, like DeNiro decades later, would be the face of the street fighting gangster public enemy.
I guess another slim tie to this dvd collection would be the Stranger, where Welles crossed paths with 'Little Caesar' himself, EG Robinson, albeit reluctantly. Can't imagine Agnes Moorehead as Little Caesar, but she would have made a fine and certainly distinctly different Wilson.