Warners’ I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a blistering exposé of the brutality of chain-gang punishment and a pointed criticism of America’s forgetful treatment of its war veterans. Enormously profitable and highly praised in its day, I Am a Fugitive is still a sensational, startlingly powerful movie, directed by Mervyn LeRoy (who [...]

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At the dawn of the talkies, Warner Brothers quickly established itself as the studio with a social conscience, specializing in uncompromising, realistic films about contemporary ills. The success of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1930) and James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931) not only created iconic stars but made the gangster genre essential [...]

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