This smash hit started the gangster craze and LeRoy gained a reputation as a top dramatic director (although his follow-up assignment was Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)). Zanuck's tilt toward realism and threw himself into his next assignment-Little Caesar (1931).
In the depths of the Depression there was considerable disagreement within the studio on whether audiences wanted escapism or stories addressing issues pertaining to the stark realities of the day. His motto, to paraphrase William Shakespeare, was "Good stories make good movies." LeRoy rounded out the decade assigned to more lightweights, such as Naughty Baby (1928) (his first talkie), Hot Stuff (1929), Little Johnny Jones (1929) and a primitive but rather inventive musical talkie, Broadway Babies (1929), all of which proved that he was equally adept at constructing a musical as any other genre he worked in. Earning $1,000 per week by the end of that year, he was nicknamed "The Boy Wonder" of Warner Bros., where his pictures were profitable lightweights. He scored an unqualified hit with Harold Teen (1928). His next step was as a director, and his first effort was No Place to Go (1927). He worked in the costume department, the film lab and as a camera assistant before becoming a comedy gag writer and part-time actor in silent films. After the act broke up he contacted his cousin, Jesse L. When he entered vaudeville, his act was "LeRoy and Cooper-Two Kids and a Piano". To make money, LeRoy sold newspapers and entered talent contests as a singer.
While he and his father managed to survive, they lost everything they had. The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 was a tragedy for Mervyn LeRoy.
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