Smart Money is a 1931 film

1931 in film

-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: Cimarron - MGM*Best Actor: Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul*Best Actor: Wallace Beery - The Champ*Best Actor: Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...

 starring Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...

 and James Cagney

James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

, the only time Robinson and Cagney made a movie together, despite being the two leading gangster actors at Warner Brothers studios all through the 1930s. Smart Money was shot after Robinson's signature film Little Caesar

Little Caesar (film)

Little Caesar is a 1931 Warner Bros. Pre-Code crime film. It tells the story of a hoodlum who ascends the ranks of organized crime until he reaches its upper echelons. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film stars Edward G. Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. The story was adapted by Francis Edward...

had been released and while Cagney's breakthrough film The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy is a 1931 American Pre-Code crime film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America...

was also being filmed. The Public Enemy had not been released and so Smart Money is the only film in which Cagney played the kind of supporting role usually portrayed by Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

 later in the '30s.
Robinson plays a barber who goes to the big city to become a gambler but finds himself rooked by a blonde and a gang of thugs, whereupon he vows to take revenge, with the help of his own henchman (Cagney).
The movie was directed by Alfred E.