Review of The Mayor of Hell (1933) by Michael G — 16 Jun 2013

The Mayor of Hell sounded like it was going to be a weak version of Angels With Dirty Faces but it was surprisingly more than what I'd initially expected. James Cagney plays a racketeer who starts taking a cushy in-title-only government job at a boys reform school seriously.

The last half hour starts falling apart a bit once you discover the focus isn't quite where you thought it was but the final fifteen minutes redeem the flimsy third act quite a bit. Cagney plays Cagney and quite a few of the inmates, I mean students turn out some pretty good performances.

If you can consider The Mayor of Hell one of the early Warner Bros. gangster movies, I'd say its one of the better ones...