16 + GUIDE - British Film Institute

MOTION PICTURE HERALD
vol.161 no.9. 1 st December 1945, p.38
Seek to outlaw gangster films in Minneapolis
This is an amusing article that highlights Minneapolis’s attempts to ban all “morally
objectionable” stage and screen productions, including gangster films.
MOTION PICTURE DAILY
Thursday 31 st October 1935, p.1
Hays organization places ban on G-Man film cycle
A brief but historically interesting article announcing the agreement by the Hays Office and
film producers not to produce films that “portray the activities of American gangsters in violent
conflict with the law”.
Little Caesar (1930) Dir. Mervyn Le Roy
Books
PEARY, Gerald (ed.)
Little Caesar
University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. 185p. illus. bibliog.
Peary’s introduction to this screenplay examines the origins of the story and how the film
came to be made. Placing LITTLE CAESAR as the archetype on which the gangster genre
was formed, Peary also looks at some of the meaning of the film. This introduction and
screenplay presents a useful starting point to anyone studying the film.
Journal Articles
MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN
vol.34 no.505. February 1976, pp.38-39
Little Caesar, by Richard Combs
In this retrospective review, to mark the films re-release, Combs initially starts by comparing
LITTLE CAESAR with PUBLIC ENEMY noting that both films “fit so tightly into the same niche”.
However, he goes on to note that LITTLE CAESAR is “less complex” of the two films and that
while Edward G. Robinson’s performance is good, the film feels as if it has to be overly
condemning of Rico towards the end.
JOURNAL OF POPULAR FILM
vol.1 no.3. Summer 1972, pp.209-226
“Little Caesar” and its role in the gangster genre, by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Kaminsky’s thorough and thoughtful article begins with asserting that as the first gangster film
of the US 1930’s cycle, many of the elements and motifs that we recognise as being part of
the gangster genre had their archetype in LITTLE CAESAR. Kaminsky examines the meaning
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