Film review: Picture Snatcher (1933)

 

We're always up for a Jimmy Cagney in our house, and this is pretty much the archetypal early-30s Cagney.  You can tell it's early 30s because it begins with a section where it introduces the main actors with the names over snippets of the film that feature them, something that seems to have been common in that era.  (I wonder when they stopped doing that?  It seems very sitcom-y.)  Anyway, the film proper begins with Cagney's Danny Kean being discharged from prison. Apparently he was a model prisoner, because everyone there is very chummy, until, that is, he walks out the door and bumps into a chunky Irish (and not Irish American, actual Irish, like all the cops are in Warner Brothers cartoons) cop who was apparently the one who put him away in the first place (and shot him, it emerges six times!  And the "slugs" are still in him!  And this becomes even more incredible as the events of the film unfold, as you will see), who sneers at him that he'll put him back inside again soon (to which Danny, who has a fine line in archaic-sounding slang, calls him "vinegar puss").  Danny is picked up by a huge fancy car and (in a phenomenon that is repeated often) a woman in the car throws herself at him.  

Danny seems wary of the attention he's getting, and it emerges that this is his gang, in that he was their leader before he was incarcerated, and they are keen to have him back running things again.  But (after being treated to a nice bath complete with perfumed bath salts) 

he is not so keen.  It turns out that he has seen the light in jail and, after giving his former second-in-command (Jerry "the Mug") 

what for for allowing him to take the fall, and scooping up the huge wodge of cash that they say was "his share" of the last job they did before he got arrested "plus interest," he exits, to their frank amazement.  Apparently he has always wanted to be a journalist, and was visited while in prison by J.R. "Al" or "Mac" McLean (played by Ralph Bellamy, who towers over Cagney, although he was only 6'1", so that illustrates just how tiny Cagney was - apparently the actor that Cagney thought would be best suited to play him in a biopic was Michael J. Fox, so that tracks) who, he discovers, is now editor at the disreputable tabloid rag Graphic News.  McLean doesn't think Danny should get a job there (he's only there himself because he's been kicked out of every reputable paper in town, presumably because he's a raging alcoholic, as we see early on) and is trying to let him down gently when the paper's owner or executive editor, who lacks any moral qualms at all demands that a picture be got of the fireman who is currently holding police at bay in the charred wreck of his own house that he came to save only to discover his wife in bed with another man, and the aforementioned wife (hard to do, you'd think, given she's a cinder).  Danny, seeing his "in", volunteers, and manages to steal in the back window, convinced the shotgun-wielding fireman that he's an insurance appraiser who's out to get him the most money he can ($3000, he arrives at) and when the fireman's back is turned, steals a picture of the fireman and his wife (in happier times) that is framed on the wall.  The big boss is delighted, and Danny is hired (at $20 a week).  (Once the picture is used as the cover of the Graphic News, the fireman storms into the office intending to shoot Danny (how is he allowed to walk around? with a gun?) and Danny hides in the women's toilets.  In general, Danny comes across as pretty much a lowlife, and if he was played by anyone other than Cagney it would be hard to root for him in any way.  

He does seem to feel sorry, but claims not to have seen the harm in what he was doing (because it was part of him earning "an honest living") which is hard to give credence to.  While he is in there, the second woman to throw himself at him does so, Allison, 

the most interesting female actor in the movie (Alice White) who is a blonde who knows what she is and what she wants and will take it, even though she's officially Mac's girl, something that seems to mean a lot more to Danny than it does to her.)

So Danny settles in, but is still the low guy on the totem pole when the newsroom gets its annual visit from a group of students from the local university keen to be shown the ropes.  Nobody else wants the job, but because 3 out of the 4 are attractive young women (the other is a very young Sterling "Winnie the Pooh" Holloway, 

playing an insufferable nerd) Danny doesn't mind.  In fact, he is particularly drawn to one young woman - Pat Nolan - 

and, in a clever little scene, asks her out while in the deafening room where the type is set by two older gents by yelling in the ear of one, so he types on his special keyboard and the type drops into a little tray, whence it can be removed and, when pressed onto an ink pad, used to proposition the girl.  She is amused and responds "why not tonight?"  Cut to him taking her home at 3 AM where she is nervous because her father is coming home soon.  And come home he does, and... he's the cop who shot Danny -  Lieutenant Casey Nolan!  Danny has to leg it, and the cop shoots after him!  This is clearly a trigger-happy policeman (plus ça change)!  Pat is still interested, but Nolan sr. will have none of it, and even seeks Danny out at the newsroom.  Mac tells Danny to hide (men's toilets this time) and sweet talks Nolan to such an extent (calling a more reputable newspaper and urging them to do a flattering portrait of Nolan, that ends up getting him promoted to Captain) that Nolan shakes hands happily with Danny, and Danny and Pat are allowed to court.  However, Danny feels a little stuck at the Graphic News and wants his big break.  The chance at this arrives when a woman is being given the chair and a select group of newsmen (none from the Graphic News) are invited to witness it.  Nobody is allowed to photograph it, however, and the top dog at the News says he'd give his eye and $1000 for a picture.  So, of course, Danny contrives to get the photo.  Again this does not reflect well on Danny's character - all the other newsmen dread this part of the job and flinch and turn away, but Danny is only nervous that his ankle camera will be found.  Also, he is happy to have Nolan vouch for him to get him into the prison and is somehow amazed that this ends up getting Nolan demoted back down to Lieutenant.  Also there is a general hunt out for Danny (it starts right after he walks out of the prison and drops the camera for all to see which leads to a car chase and then a train chase) 

so he has to lie low in Allison's apartment.  She's supposed to be off on a story at Niagara Falls, but comes home to try to seduce him.  

He is fighting her off when Mac arrives (drunk) and sees them and a massive fight breaks out and Danny realizes his journalistic career is over, as well as any chance with Pat (a point that she hammers home when he visits her, leading to him tearing up the marriage certificate he had prepared).  So, when next we see him, he is a drunken shell of his former self at a dive bar.  However, Mac has sobered up, realized that it was all Allison and quit the Graphic News, and seeks out Danny to forge a new journalistic path.  

But what will be the big story that breaks it for them?  The answer is provided when it comes across the wires that Danny's old frenemy Jerry "the Mug" has killed two cops and has gone to ground.  Danny knows that the woman who was all over him in the limo that picked him up from the prison is the key, and the final stretch of the movie is him finding Jerry and desperately trying to avoid dying in the hail of bullets as Jerry fights it out with the cops.  Will the cops think he was in cahoots with "the Mug"?  Will Nolan forgive him?  Will Pat forgive him?  Will Allison show up to screw up his chance of happiness again?  Well, it's on HBO Max, so go there and find out for yourself.  You can also watch this (very Canadian) review, which I have just discovered.