"At bottom, the gangster is doomed because he is under the obligation to succeed, not because the means he employs are unlawful... This is our intolerable dilemma: that failure is a kind of death and success is evil and dangerous, is - ultimately - impossible. The effect of the gangster film is to embody this dilemma and resolve by his death" ( Robert Warshow, ' The Gangster as Tragic Hero', The Immediate Experience, 1948)