Novels
- Little Caesar (1929)
- High Sierra (1940)
- Nobody Lives Forever (1943)
- The Asphalt Jungle (1949)
- Little Men, Big World (1951)
- Vanity Row (1952)
- Good-bye, Chicago (1981)
Omnibus
- Four Novels : Little Caesar / Asphalt Jungle / High Sierra / Vanity Row (1984)
Novels Book Covers
Omnibus Book Covers
W R Burnett Books Overview
Little Caesar
Little Caesar, a 1931 Hollywood gangster classic, is viewed in revivals today with nearly as much audience enthusiasm as it enjoyed a half century ago, in the depths of the Great Depression.
In general, the Hollywood film industry responded to the dark economic conditions of the 1930s with escapist and non topical films. The fascinating exception was the gangster film, through which the studios joined in the debate over the spiritual and economic health of the nation. Little Caesar, considered by many to be an architype of the genre, is one of the most memorable dramatizations of the discontent and alienation, the deep anxiety and hostility shared by millions of Americans during those dark years.
High Sierra
High Sierra 1941 is a highly successful Warner Brothers gangster film of special interest to film scholars, and aficionados. It represented a turning point in the nature of gangster film of the 1930s. It was the film that launched Humphrey Bogart to stardom. And it is representative of the concerted efforts of the very b est of Warners’ talent of the era. In a period of serious reas*sessment of the American film, this revised shooting script, never before published, provides valuable primary data for that reas*sessment.
The Asphalt Jungle
W.R. Burnett’s The Asphalt Jungle unfolds in short, vivid bursts of atmosphere and character a tough and seemingly artless kind of American fiction that reaches out from another era. Yet the novel still slices to the bone in its depiction of the duplicity and corruption that undoes a group of ambitious crooks.
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