Actor Edward G. Robinson remains inextricably linked with the establishment, in the early 1930s, of a new, popular and influential genre in the cinema: the Warner Bros. gangster movie. The films reflected an era overshadowed by the Depression, Prohibition, and the reign of notorious Chicago mobster Al Capone, expanded into hard-hitting social-conscience dramas, and progressed to film noir in the 1940s with Humphrey Bogart at the center of the Warner contribution. This significant strand in film history dates from Little Caesar (1931), which enhanced the reputation of Warner Bros., unleashed a torrent of similar films, established the producer credentials of Darryl F. Zanuck and Hal Wallis and the reputation of director Mervyn LeRoy—and made Edward G. Robinson into a huge star.

Robinson was a man of many contradictions. Despite his world-famous screen image as a crude gangster, in the course of his...