Picture Snatcher (1933)

Picture Snatcher
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Allen Rivkin, P.J. Wolfson, and Ben Markson from a story by Daniel Ahern
US/1933
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Patricia Nolan: What do you think you are, a reporter? Why you’re the lowest thing on the newspaper. A picture snatcher!

Spending an evening with Jimmy Cagney is never a bad thing.

When mob boss Danny Kean (Cagney) is released from prison, he decides to go straight and gets a job as a photographer for a sleazy tabloid, working for City Editor McLean (Ralph Bellamy). He goes after all the hard targets, specializing in photos the subjects don’t want taken. He finds that his gangster skills serve him well as he connives to get to his victims.

He is called to take a high school group on a tour of the newspaper offices.  It is there he meets and chats up teenage Patricia Nolan (Patricia Ellis).  Her father is the policeman who arrested him and he is none too happy about this development.  When McLean vouches for Danny, the father softens only to get demoted for allowing the photographer to sneak into an execution.  Danny’s other romantic complication is the advances of McLean’s girlfriend (Alice White).  Further plot developments will allow Danny to save the day.

I enjoyed this movie, though it certainly isn’t the best of the many pre-Code newspaper movies or anything.