Dangerous Men

Using the same mix of snappy prose, accessibility, and insider knowledge that he employed so successfully in COMPLICATED WOMEN, Mick LaSalle now turns his attention to the men of the pre-Code Hollywood era. Highlighting such household names as James Cagney, Clark Gable and Gary cooper - and lesser-known ones such as Lee Tracy and Richard Barthelmess - LaSalle shows how concepts of manhood and heroism changed as the talkies came in and the Great Depression took hold. The smiling confident hero of previous years fell out of favour, and new heroes emerged: gangster, opportunists, sleazy businessmen, shifty lawyers and shell-shocked soldiers. They were men whose existence threatened the system.