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Picture Snatcher |  | Director: Lloyd Bacon
Actors: James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis, Alice White, Ralf Harolde
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $4.90
as of 11/23/2009 04:00 CST details
You Save: $15.08 (75%)
New (34) Used (7) from $4.09
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Rating:  6 reviews
Format: Black & White, DVD, Original recording remastered, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 77 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 1000035749
UPC: 883929002740
EAN: 0883929002740
Theatrical Release Date: 1933
Release Date: March 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Deceit. Theft. Lawlessness. They can land you in the pen. Or they can land you a job in the legit world. James Cagney plays a con fresh out of Sing Sing and putting his criminal skills to work as a sneaky, snaky tabloid photog in the slam-bang Picture Snatcher.Cagney ? spontaneous, freewheeling and roughing up guys and dolls alike ? brings a million volts of starpower to this pre-Hays Code romp. T |
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Product Description
Here?s Cagney as Danny Kean a former gangster who has decided to go straight after a stretch in the big house. Danny has fallen for Patricia (Patricia Ellis) the daughter of the cop who put him away (Robert Emmett O'Connor). Dad isn't convinced that Danny has left his life of crime behind him and he isn't too impressed with his new career taking pictures for a sleazy tabloid newspaper. Between getting a lurid photo of a fireman in front of a burning building (where his wife and her lover met their fate) and a daring shot of a woman being executed (based an actual incident when a New York Daily News photographer got a photo of Ruth Snyder in the electric chair) Danny's work is selling papers but hardly making Officer O'Connor think his daughter is in good hands (especially since he was in charge of press security for the execution).Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CRIME & CRIMINALS UPC: 883929002740 Manufacturer No: 1000035749
Amazon.com
Picture Snatcher is exemplary early Cagney, 77 hard-charging minutes with the favorite son of the Lower East Side as a brash ex-con determined to go straight. How straight is a delicate question, since his job is scoring sensational photos for a raunchy tabloid. Picture Snatcher was made before the Production Code cast its puritanical shadow over Hollywood, and the script features two memorably morbid sequences--Cagney's debut as a literal picture snatcher, and the snapping of a clandestine prison-death-house photo--as well as abundant opportunities for risqué byplay, gallows humor, and freewheeling amorality. Lloyd Bacon (soon to direct Cagney in Footlight Parade) makes yeoman work of it all, even getting away with scenes in the newspaper's restroom, and staging a last-reel shootout ferocious enough to be worthy of a real gangster movie. With Ralph Bellamy as Cagney's newspaper boss (rare for him in those days to get a smart-guy role), Patricia Ellis as Cagney's girl (the daughter of the cop who sent him up), and sex-pixie Alice White stealing just about any scene she's in. --Richard T. Jameson
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 Cagney Joins The Paparazzi April 8, 2009
Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
This was great! It's vintage James Cagney: tough, cocky, funny and endearing! The film is also typical early '30s: short, entertaining, fast-moving with some wild dialog and plenty of action and humor.
Imagine the outcry today if they showed the hero pushing women around as Cagney did here and in other films of the period. This particular story has Cagney playing "Danny Kean," an ex-con who quits his former mob and winds up at a tabloid newspaper as a member of the paparazzi! (I guess this story was ahead of it's time.) He does what he has to do get a picture for the paper, and a financial raise for his efforts.
Along the way are several very pretty women "Pat" and "Allison" (played respectively by Patricia Ellis and Alice White); a number of sexual innuendos (which wouldn't have made it in the picture had this been made a year later); and just a fun-filled corny 1930s ride.
 Cuts to the Chase January 21, 2009
Buster49 (Utica, NY)
For years, Cagney's pre-1935 WB films, with few exceptions, went largely unseen. Ever since Turner Classic Movies made them available, I've seen all the early Cagneys and consider "Picture Snatcher" to be one of my three favorites (along with "Public Enemy"(1931) and "Taxi"(1932)). Fast paced and lean, the film whips along as the result of Cagney's firecracker performance. As WB always did at that time, the film gives the viewer a feeling of NYC in the early 1930s, like Ben Shahn photographs set to movement.
If you like Cagney, I can't recommend this enough.
One of Cagney's Best May 13, 2008
luvtheCag (Colorado)
Picture Snatcher has become one of this reviewer's favorites, biting into the lead once held by Each Dawn I Die. Cagney is in top form here, with lots of "goodies" as he called them (ad libs and improvs): particularly enjoyable was the bathtub scene, when lavendar-scented bath salts are poured in the water (also, note his voluminous freckles).
Ralph Bellamy is great as a supporting character and Patricia Ellis is the love interest, although Alice White does her best to form a love triangle between the two males. White is great as a woman drawn to Cagney's character like to high-grade catnip.
A great comedy/drama based on real life headlines of the time. Extras include a good commentary and the usual vintage cartoon or two and news reels.
Production line filmmaking at its best! May 12, 2008
Trevor Willsmer (London, England)
Picture Snatcher isn't one of his greats by any means, but this fast-paced Warner Bros. newspaper movie is a perfect example of why Jimmy Cagney was such a big star in the 30s. It's an unashamed star vehicle built to exploit the star's fast-talking tough-guy charisma, here as a reformed gangster working his way up the ladder on the lowest scandal sheet in town with his ability to snatch the pictures no-one else can get - including one of a woman's execution. The Front Page it's not, but it fits its star like a well-tailored suit and does exactly what it sets out to do: to entertain for 77 minutes. Good extras on the DVD too.
First rate pre-code Cagney April 6, 2008
Douglas M
Every now and then, a forgotten film surfaces and is as pungent today as it was when first released. "Picture Snatcher", released in 1933, is such a film.
The film stars the magnetic James Cagney as an ex-con trying to go straight who joins a sleazy tabloid as a paparrazi. The narrative traces his attempts to establish a career as he skirmishes with the police, trying to stay out of trouble. Part of the problem is he falls for the daughter of a policeman so complications ensure. This is a film where everyone is on the make whether it be the alcoholic editor, Ralph Bellamy, the promiscuous journalist, Alice White, or the subtly ambitious heroine, Patricia Ellis. The film was made before the censorship was enforced in 1934 so there are some great one liners. Cagney leers at every woman, is ready with his fists and you can't take your eyes off him. The observations about the morality of the paper and Cagney's employment are as sensitive today as they were in 1933. The film is very well directed by Lloyd Bacon.
The print is outstanding and the DVD contains Warner's Night at the Movies, that great combination of short film, trailers and cartoon etc prior to the main feature. The Vitaphone musical short stars an appealing Dorothy Lee and is surprisingly complex for such a minor item, even including overhead shots a la Busby Berkeley. The cartoon is a gem, full of close harmony and rich stereotypes. There is also a detailed commentary of the film, shared between 2 historians. They focus, and rightly so, on Cagney but their observations of the film itself are often remarks about what is obvious on screen.
This DVD is great value and even better if purchased as part of Warner's Gangster Set Volume 3.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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