I would say that as the sound period began, which is when most people consider the gangster film period as beginning to flourish, it was most clearly Warner Brothers, run by Jack Warner and headed by production chief Daryl Zanuck [that made its name with the gangster film].

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I perceived that the gangster movie had replaced the Western as the quintessential American movie myth.

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From trading in sex ... as well as violence to exploiting material ripped 'straight from the day's headlines' to casting, if not a completely sympathetic eye, at least an emphatic one on its lead gangster ...

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