Larceny, Inc (1942)

Larceny, Inc (1942) is a super-fun madcap comedy crime caper starring Edward G. Robinson, Broderick Crawford, Jane Wyman and Jack Carson, among several other golden age heroes of the screen.

Not your regular film noir fare, it's still important to patrol the edge of the style and find valuable curiosities such as this, a comedy to be sure, and a bold stab at comedy and crime collided. It's a lot of fun.

That said Larceny, Inc. is indeed a a swell 1942 flick, hitting the big screen on May 2, 1942, care of Warner Bros. Picture this. 

It's a mix-up of comedy and gangster shenanigans, cooked up by director Lloyd Bacon. Starring heavyweights like Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Carson, and spiced up with Anthony Quinn and Edward Brophy.

Brother Orchid (1940)

Brother Orchid (1940) is a Warner Bros. comedy gangster caper which while not a part of the classic film noir cycle, is an interesting stop on the route.

One of five films to star both Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, Brother Orchid is a  shenanigan-based production which manages to eke out comedy from gangsterism — never truly easy in the era — while combing a spiritual and moral aspect, which doesn't quite pull the criminality from crime, but refashions it for social purpose.

The story kicks off with crime boss Little John Sarto (played by Edward G. Robinson) retiring suddenly, giving leadership of his gang to Jack Buck (played by Humphrey Bogart) while he leaves for a tour of Europe to acquire 'class'. However, Sarto is repeatedly swindled and finally loses all his money in a series of daft newspaper headlines.

Picture Snatcher (1933)

Picture Snatcher (1933) is a pre-code proto-noir ex-con-goes-straight journalism and media drama come farce starring James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis and Ralf Harrolde.

The movie runs to many things in its farcical and dramatic and comic qualities, and this includes being a portrait of contemporary big-city journalism, in which various metropolitan dailies and evening papers would compete hard to scoop each other. 

In a cinematic take on a tabloid journalist sneaking a camera into the Ruth Snyder execution in 1928, James Cagney does the same and a chaotic chase follows. The electrocution of housewife Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer Tom Howard, working for the New York Daily News, smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on.