Douglass Dumbrille, George Chandler, Henry O'Neill

When a movie theater usher is fired, he takes up with criminals and finds himself quite adept at various illegal activities. Eventually though, the police catch up with him, and he runs to hide out in...( read more  read more... ) Los Angeles. There he stumbles into the movie business and soon rises to stardom. He has gone straight, but his newfound success arouses the interest of his old criminal associates, who are not above blackmail...

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61% liked it

234 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 14 min.

Directed by: Roy Del Ruth

Release Date: December 9, 1933

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DVD Release Date: March 25, 2008

Stats: 24 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (24)


  • January 29, 2009
    james cagney teams up with his "public enemy" costar mae clarke, the wretched woman who gets slapped with a grapefruit by cagney, in the gangster slapstick"lady killer". conventionally, hollywood favors to categorize women into the dichotomy. since clarke is the bandit moll who d...( read more)oublecrosses cagney, magret lindsay would be the mighty dame with heart of gold to accompany cagney thru the odds.

    cagney plays a regular sap who encounters the bandit moll mae clarke who literally makes a living by deceiving men into her apartment's gambling racket. then cagney robs the joint as his own to make big dough, but ill-fatedly the gang gets caught by police due to misfire. consequentially cagney elopes with clarke to california, but their escape still leads to jail. and clarke cheats his five grands instead of bailing him out. later cagney gets spotted by film studio due to his vagabond rough looks, so he becomes a hollywood starlet who romances margaret lindsay (cagney's costar in "g men", the typecasting of flat good girl)...somehow his former gang schemes to trap him into the new racket...so how shall cagney untangle the mess and comes off clean?

    chauvinism seems unavoidable in the genre of gangsterism, particularly when it meets the magnitude of jimmy cagney who brazenly bares his misogynistic contempt thru domestic violence which was embraced with wholehearted welcome by the audience in the 30s. here cagney's character even drags mae clarke's hair then tosses her outside the door. clarke has been provided with more chances to demonstrate her sex appeal in this one but tragically she still falls as the prey of masculine abuse just like "public enemey" to form a demeaning but titillating effect to the audience.

    the production of "lady killer" seems crude as the vehicle for cagney, it's like the studio predicts that audience would go for any crap made of the public enemy persona, so this time they manufacture another version of cagney going legitimate as the conformed actor with a laughable mustache which apparently attempts to parody the mgm male stars. it contains every idiosyncratic cliche (or vice?) of the 1930s cinema, such as sexism, slumming, racketeering, hoodlum into nouveau riche...etc. it would probably takes a fan of cagney or an ardent admirer for the 30s like myself to appreciate "lady killer".
  • September 29, 2009
    recommended by veronique K.
  • June 8, 2008
    This movie contains another good performance by James Cagney. This is an interesting story, one that is over to fast. They could have come up with a better title, it doesn?t really suit the film.
  • May 19, 2008
    Mae Clarke of the Grapefruit in The Face takes abuse from Cagney again in this comedy about a criminal turned movie star. Though she deserves it this time.

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Lady Killer Trivia


  • On Halloween, 1962, young Frankie witnesses an eerie apparition. A she-ghost, in the grip of a weird and mysterious killer, begs Frankie to put her spirit to rest. To which film made in 1988 by Frank Laloggia does this synopsis belong?  Answer »
  • In the Seven Sumarai, how did the main protagonist save the lady and child trapped in the hut with a killer?  Answer »

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