G Men - Region 1 DVD

Film critic Manny Farber praised Keighley as "the least sentimental director of gangster careers," and he gives the numerous murders and shootouts a jolting ferocity. (Thirteen years later Keighley helmed the excellent F.B.I. case history Street With No Name.) The I-don't-like-you-and-I-don't-trust-you byplay between Cagney and his Bureau boss Robert Armstrong gets old, but there's flavorful thuggery from MacLane, Edward Pawley, Noel Madison, et al. "G" Men's style is briskly no-nonsense, yet so beautifully has the film been restored and digitally remastered, there are moments when Sol Polito's cinematography literally glows. One gripe only: The movie should have been presented as it was in 1935, without the F.B.I.-classroom intro tacked on for 1949 reissue (the sort of thing "Special Features" was made for). --Richard T. Jameson