Monday, November 9, 2009

One, Two, Three (1961)

In honor of the fall of the Berlin Wall's 20th anniversary, I decided to put up this blog since the film is sort of about the Cold War and takes place in Berlin (also, as you will read in the blog, it was filmed while the Berlin Wall was being built). I just watched the 1961 James Cagney movie One, Two, Three for the first time and it was so funny!!! I think it's one of Billy Wilder's best films. James Cagney was great as C.P. MacNamara, the fast-talking Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin who tries to stop his boss's daughter, whom he's chaperoning, from marrying a Communist, who I think really represented the hippie youth of that era. Jimmy Cagney was certainly at his speediest in this film—and he was old, but who cares?! What really matters to me—more than James Cagney (surprise)—in this movie is its location: West Berlin & Germany all together. (Yes, I'm aware that Germany was split into East and West Germany and was called as such.)






Germany is one of my very favorite countries and it—especially Berlin (both sides of the city)—played as much as a big role as James Cagney did in this movie. It's also one of the reasons why I wanted to see this movie. This movie was filmed around the time that the Berlin Wall was built—which means that it was filming when JFK made that famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. If you ever see this movie, you can see that in the scenes with the Brandenburg Gate, there is no Berlin Wall. Well, that's because the crew decided to switch over to the parking lot of Munich's Bavaria Film Studios to finish the scenes with the Brandenburg Gate because they had discovered that the Berlin Wall was being built one morning, so it was for continuity purposes (you can read more about that here); they even built the bottom half of the Brandenburg Gate for the scene. Let me tell you that when I watched this movie, I couldn't recognize the area around the Brandenburg Gate; that's because I went to Berlin recently (years after the Berlin Wall fell) and the area around the Brandenburg Gate right now is really built up.





But anyway, let's focus on the film right now instead of its location. I thought that what the gesture the MP played by Red Buttons gave to Cagney was very funny and was supposed to be a Cagney imitation (it was appropriate too since Cagney was so tyrannical towards the MP). And the fact that Cagney put a deflated balloon that said "Russki, Go Home" over the exhaust pipe of the Communist hippie's motorcycle and it was being inflated while the motorcycle was running was absolutely hysterical and clever.


Sadly, it was after this movie that James Cagney decided to retire from acting; it wasn't until 20 years later that he finally came back onto the screen in the film Ragtime (1981). Of course, he was being driven nuts by director Billy Wilder during the filming of this movie.


And I know that you guys are most interested in learning about Cagney from this film review rather reading about the Cold War and I'm sorry if this blog would bore you, but let me tell you something: I was exposed to more stuff about East & West Germany and East & West Berlin when I was in Germany recently than you guys are being exposed to right now, so you guys have it easy (even though I'm kinda interested in German history and easily understood the references to German history in this movie—especially the ones about Hitler). I would recommend this movie for any James Cagney fan who loves watching him in wild comedies. Again, opinions and comments on this movie are encouraged!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Labels

1890s (1) 1930s Hollywood (5) 1931 (2) 1932 (2) 1933 (3) 1934 (4) 1935 (3) 1936 (2) 1937 (1) 1938 (2) 1939 (3) 1940 (3) 1941 (2) 1949 (1) 1950s (1) 1960s (1) Academy Award winners (1) action (3) adapted from play (1) adventure (8) alcoholism (1) Allen Jenkins (4) ambulance chasers (1) an affair to remember (1) Angels with Dirty Faces (1) Ann Sheridan (3) Asians in Films (1) aviation films (3) B-Movies (2) baby boomers (1) bad set designs (1) been a long time (1) behind-the-scenes movies (2) Berlin (1) Berlin Wall 20th Anniversary (1) Bette Davis (2) Billy Wilder (1) biopics (3) Blonde Crazy (1) blue-collar workers (1) bootlegging (1) box office hits (1) boxing (1) Busby Berkeley (1) Cagney makes weird noises (1) Cagney's ugly haircut (1) California (1) Canada (1) car-racing (1) casablanca (1) Ceiling Zero (1) Character Actors (13) Chicago (1) child stars (2) City for Conquest (1) Cold War (1) comedy (9) Communism (1) Communist hippies (1) corruption (1) costume designers (1) country boy Cagney (1) country life (1) crime (11) crimebeats (1) dairy farmers (1) daylight saving time (1) Death Valley (1) Dennis Morgan (2) dentistry (1) desert town (1) Dick Powell (2) dishonesty (1) doctor zhivago (1) dramas (21) drinking (1) Edmund O'Brien (1) Elia Kazan (1) epics (1) famous grapefruit scene (1) fantasy (1) fast-paced comedies (1) FBI (1) femme fatales (1) film noir (2) film scores by Max Steiner (1) Frank McHugh (9) future Fred Mertz (2) G-Men (1) gangster (8) George Brent (1) George C. Scott (1) George Raft (1) Germany (1) Gloria Stuart (1) Great Guy (1) Guns in the Movies (12) hair-pulling scene (1) He Was Her Man (1) headbutting (2) Henry Fonda (1) Here Comes the Navy (1) Hollywood parody (3) hotels (1) Howard Hawks (2) Humphrey Bogart (3) Indie films (2) Ireland (1) Irene Manning (1) Irish (1) Irish families (1) Irish fighting units (1) Irish heritage (3) Irish-themed (2) iron man 2 (1) J. Edgar Hoover (1) Jack Lemmon (1) James Cagney (40) James Cagney films (1) Jean Harlow (1) Jeanne Cagney (1) Jeffrey Lynn (2) Jimmy the Gent (1) Joan Blondell (6) Joan Leslie (1) Joe E. Brown (1) John Ford (1) Lady Killer (1) Las Vegas (1) Latino (1) legendary actors (1) leprechaun (1) Lloyd Bacon (3) loose women (2) Loretta Young (1) Los Angeles (2) madmen (1) Mae Clarke (2) makeup artists (1) Makeup effects (1) Mervyn LeRoy (1) Michael Curtiz (4) Mickey Rooney (1) Midwestern crime sweep (1) military dramas (1) milk war (1) Mister Roberts (1) municipal workers (1) musical comedies of the Great Depression (1) musicals (5) mystery (1) Nevada (1) New York melodramas (1) newspaper films (1) Oedipal Complex (1) Olivia de Havilland (3) on the lam (1) on-screen couples (1) only you (1) Pat O'Brien (7) patriotism (2) police (1) Political Films (6) Poverty Row (1) Pre-Code films (9) Pre-Code Films (1) Priscilla Lane (1) prison movies (2) Prohibition Era (1) psychopaths (1) racism (1) racketeers (1) Ralph Bellamy (2) Raoul Walsh (3) Ray Milland (1) Red Buttons (1) reformed criminals (1) Rita Hayworth (1) Robert Armstrong (1) robert downey jr. (4) roman holiday (1) romance (11) romantic comedies (10) Rosemary Lane (1) Ruby Keeler (2) Sambre Dance (1) Screenwriters (2) screwball comedies (1) service pictures (1) Shakespeare (1) Shakespeare film adaptations (1) shamrocks (1) sherlock holmes (2) small towns (1) social dramas (2) Something to Sing About (1) sports films (1) St. Louis (1) St. Patrick's Day (1) tabloid newspaper reporters (1) Technicolor (2) The Bride Came C.O.D. (1) the crowd roars (1) the Dead End Kids (1) The Fighting 69th (1) the irish in us (2) the mayor of hell (1) The Oklahoma Kid (1) The Public Enemy (1) The Roaring Twenties (1) The Simpsons (1) The St. Louis Kid (1) The Strawberry Blonde (1) Torrid Zone (1) trivia (1) turkeys (1) turn-of-the-century NYC (1) versatility (1) Virginia Mayo (2) Walter Huston (1) war effort (1) war films (3) Warner Brothers (11) wearing of the green (1) westerns (2) White Heat (1) William Dieterle (1) William Powell (1) William Wellman (1) winner take all (1) World War I films (1) World War II films (1) wrestling films (1)

Search This Blog

E! Online (US) - Movie News