Over the past few years no other studio has treated their catalog of older films with more respect than Warner Brothers. To that end, they have turned a number of these decades old films into highly desirable box sets. Among those sets are ones based on the stars such as the Gary Cooper Signature Collection and the Errol Flynn Signature Collection; in addition to those, they also released themed sets such as Film Noir.
This film is a part of the Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3. It follows the Tough Guys Collection, which has since been renamed to Gangsters Collection, Vol. 2 (why the need for the name change? Your guess is as good as mine).
In 1933, James Cagney's career was definitely on the rise, especially after the success of Smart Money (although primarily an Edward G. Robinson vehicle) and The Public Enemy. With The Mayor of Hell, Cagney plays a pivotal, if more of a supporting, role. His presence is likely to add a little star power to a film whose lead character is a teenage boy. I cannot confirm that, but it seems like a possible conclusion. Whatever the real story is, the fact remains that the charismatic James Cagney is fantastic as Patsy Gargan.
The Mayor of Hell is a pre-Code film (Hays Code: guidelines for conduct of what could and could not appear in a motion picture), meaning it was allowed to be a little grittier and realistic in tone than it could have been had the Code been in effect. While the film was real in tone, it was still subject to editing and censorship based on where the film was being shown (a fact that historian Greg Mank talks about in the commentary, showing where some cuts were made by various boards around the country).
The movie opens with a gang of Depression-era kids pulling a car-watching scam, showing the consequences of not paying up. Things take a turn when a shoplifting job results in a group, including leader Jimmy Smith (Frankie Darro looking like a young Joaquin Phoenix), getting caught. In a wonderful courthouse scene, a number of them are sentenced to reform school where they will spend one year in the hopes of becoming better people.
It should be noted that, at the time, reform schools were a hot button issue. Many kids that went in came out harder and meaner than they went in. This film takes us inside the issue and shows that reform is very necessary. The issue was handled more recently, and less effectively, in Driftwood.
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