This atmospheric gangster classic, from 1931, is based on a story by Dashiell Hammett; it offers a terse visual translation of his prose as well as of his cold-blooded view of Prohibition-era underworld wiles.

Gary Cooper, in a fine, gangly performance as a saintly bootlegger, is worth watching.

Mamoulian's inentive crime-gangster film of the early sound era stars the young, handsome Gary Cooper in atypical role, before he became a movie star.

Quite the wry gangster sonata