Back in the days of the studio system, gangster films were moviemakers' bread and butter. Although they seldom won awards, they were cheap to make, and virtually guaranteed a profit. While Warner Brothers pretty well defined the genre with their James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart films, other studios and independent producers also cranked them out by the score.

Originally produced mainly to fill the lower half of double bills, they continue to inspire today's moviemakers. Among the recent remakes were Gun Crazy, and bloated reworkings of Night and the City and Narrow Margin. NYPD Blue's David Caruso is scheduled to star in a remake of the classic Kiss of Death. It also served as the basis for the deplorable 1958 western The Fiend Who Walked the West.

The Gangster Collection from CBS/Fox Video contains 11 warhorses from the 30's through the 60's. While you won't find anything with Bogart or Cagney, the collection contains fine performances by Richard Widmark, Dan Duryea, and others.

Richard Widmark in Street With No Name.

Widmark was always most interesting when playing unscrupulous characters. He is at his insane best in Road House and that's very hard to beat. Not to be confused with the Patrick Swayze movie, this 1948 film is a tight little drama that harks back to a time when scriptwriters could make an exciting story out of virtually anything, and directors were capable of creating economical movies with never a dull moment. All director Jean Negulesco needed was Widmark as the sadistic owner of the road house and Cornell Wilde as his employee. Soon after, he hires Ida Lupino as his nightclub singer, sparks begin to fly between her and Wilde, and Widmark becomes jealous. When Wilde is wrongly convicted of robbery, Widmark arranges to have him put in his custody, and in general makes life hell for both of them. With a lesser actor the film might have been boring and predictable. At once cunning, ruthless, and cruel, we're never sure what Widmark's character will do next.

Widmark contributes another delightfully cynical and sinister performance in Street With No Name. Supposedly based on an actual FBI case, this 1948 film featured Mark Stevens as an undercover agent infiltrating Widmark's big city mob. Stevens is cocky, almost arrogant agent had a talent for boxing and seemed able to lick all comers in the ring and mob. As such he made a nice foil for Widmark's suspicious mobster. We're always expecting Stevens to slip up and Widmark to figure him out. Although the plot's as old as the hills and the script's thundering voiceover narration walks us through the case by the numbers, director William Keighley kept it moving at a brisk pace.

In 1955, director Samuel Fuller reworked it by transferring the setting to Japan, and replacing the FBI with army officers and police. The remake, titled House of Bamboo, starred Robert Ryan and Robert Stack. Like the recent remakes of Night and the City and Narrow Margin, it was inferior to the original.

From the title, one would expect The Underworld Story to be another bit of hokum about exposing mob corruption. Made in 1950 and directed by Cy Endfreld-best remembered for 1962's Zulu-the title looks like something that was tagged on to take advantage of the publicity generated by the Keefouver Crime Commission hearings and the spate of low-budget gangster films which became popular because of them.

Instead, it is a tale of small-town crime of passion which leads to coverup, blackmail, and murder.

Underworld's plot has Dan Duryea as a big city newspaper reporter who is fired after a story he writes helps mobster Howard DaSilva beat an indictment. Borrowing $7,500 from DaSilva, he buys part interest in a small suburban newspaper.

Duryea has barely settled into his editor's chair when the daughter-in-law of the big city publisher who fired him is murdered. The black housekeeper, who was seen hawking her employer's jewelry, is the prime suspect.

Duryea, with the morals of a snake and an instinct for a good newspaper yarn, is willing to go either way with the story. He convinces the housekeeper to give herself up, forms a defense committee to raise money for an attorney, then makes a deal with the lawyer to split the fee regardless of whether she's convicted or found innocent. As Duryea plays it, we're never really sure until the last frame whether he's reformed or working another con game.

A lot of the fun in watching these films comes from the cryptic dialogue. As one character tells Duryea, "That's an Ivy covered town, and you know under ivy is a lot of creepy, crawling things." Later Duryea says, "The truth is the truth, and we're going to stuff it down their ivy-covered throats." When he loses out on the $25,000 reward for turning in the housekeeper because the police chief decides he didn't earn it, the DA says. "Things are tough all over. Pretty soon a man won't be able to sell his own mother."

They don't write dialogue like that anymore, and maybe they shouldn't. Over the years some of these films have lost their hard-hitting realism, and become virtual parodies of themselves. Part of the reason is that they were made in a time when Hollywood labored under a production code which prohibited vulgar language and graphic violence. Although their dialogue may seem corny and the plots somewhat simplistic and naive, they are still a lot of fun to watch.

The Gangster Collection also includes Pickup on South Street,with Widmark, Johnny Apollo, with Tyrone Power, plus the original Gun Crazy, Show Them No Mercy, and 1945's Dillinger, with Lawrence Tierney. MM