Winner Take All (1932)

I just watched the 1932 James Cagney movie Winner Take All for the first time , and it was okay . It was the first James Cagney movie I watched in Probably like 7 months before Completely focusing on Robert Downey , Jr. . . And since it was my first James Cagney movie review blog written in That sametime span , I'll Probably keep this blog short . Anyway , eventhough I was not too impressed by this movie , I thought it was typical Cagney . And he was not very good - loking in musts of the movie ( I did not know They had plastic surgery back then) . Anyhow , on w / the blog.

The New York Times review of Winner Take All (1932) begins , "After enforcement of bone highly successful in His portrayal as a gangster, a gambler , a taxicab driver , a confidence man , and an automobile racer, James Cagney , the stormy petrel of the Warner Brothers studio , turns His attention . .. to impersonating a prize fighter . " Critic Mordaunt Hall goes on to note That Cagney is far more convincing Than Most players who elect to impersonate Pugilist . " Cagney so Often overplayed gangster In His early movie career thats it 's easy to over look the variety of His performances , and his dedication to getting it right , even in routine programmers . At That Time, Cagney Recalled In His autobiography , " I was still learning , and I went along making what was Given to me . " Winner Take All May have put routine , but Cagney was not . in His first boxing role , Cagney plays an on-the -skids fighter who's drying out at a Southwest health spa . While there, he meets an impoverished young widow and her little boy , and returns to the ring to help themself financially . He wins , but once he goes back to New York , he gets tangled up with a society lady and his ego gets out of control .

Cagney Trained for the role with a real-life boxer , former welterweight champion Harvey Parry , Who has a role in the film. Cagney Recalled In His autobiography That another professional fighter, watching him spar , was Certain That Cagney had fought professionally - his footwork Proved it . " I said , ' Tommy , I'm a dancer. Moving around is no problem . " " Winner Take All was written by Wilson Mizner , a true Hollywood character , screenwriter , raconteurs , con man and bon vivant . Mizner knew something about the fight game - his colorful suits included managing Several boxers in New York , as well as bilking miners Constantly the Alaskan Gold Rush , racketeering and Extortion rich speculator consistently the Florida land boom , and writing successful Broadway plays . Cagney wrote That he was fascinated by Mizner and sat for hours listening to His stories .

Winner Take All some unusual HAS plot twists - not many boxing pictures feature The fighter getting a nose job to fit in with society His sweetheart - That Raise IT above the run - of-the - mill . Were critics and impressed with Cagney 's portrayal . "Mr. .. .. Cagney gives Such A Fascinating picture of the boxer 's conceit and stupidity thats the original plot , Which Might Have Come From A Novelette , was repaid in the intricacies of His character , " According To the Times of London . " He Carries with him a véritable smell of the shower cream , or sweating body and sodden leather . He walks like a punch - drunk fighter, "wrote Gerald Breitgan in the New York World -Telegram. Cagney Would play boxers Twice more , in The Irish in Us (1935) and City for Conquest (1940) .

Winner Take All was another hit for Warner Bros. . . , and Cagney , who just a year EARLIER had gone on strike Until The studio raised His salary from $ 400 to $ 1600 a week , staged another strike for the second but not the last time . He did not work for six months , and threatened to quit movies and go back to New York to study medicine at Columbia University. He got a raise, but not as much as he'd asked for, and over the next decade , Cagney Would Be Both one of the studio's biggest moneymakers , and one of the biggest thorns in Jack Warner 's side .

Another strange thing I noticed about Cagney in this movie was That His voice was Thicker Than normal and he was some what dimwitted . It is the contrast Between Jim Kane's competency and his mental fogginess That makes him a Poignant figure Without His presence Winner Take All Would Have Been The Most routine child or prize fight drama with ITS protagonist caught at the apex of the must familiar shield or triangle , Between a good girl and a bad girl . Taken together with Taxi, and with two or three subsequent component component films Winner Take All Helped establishement Cagney not merely as a comic figure, but Also as a democratic one - spokesman , if u will , for Aggressively unpretentious urban populism.

Anyway , in the words of Robert Downey , Jr. . in Iron Man 2 , " Ah , it feels good to be back ! "

Hello, My Regular Viewers

Sorry I haven't been posting as regularly as I used to. I know it's been a whole month since I last posted something, and I'm sorry. But I promise I'll get back on my blogging feet (or hands) once I start watching James Cagney films. You see, I've been focusing too much of my attention on Robert Downey, Jr. (whom I fell in love with when I saw him in Sherlock Holmes) and the hype associated w/ the upcoming Iron Man 2 movie that I just sorta...I don't know--let this place collect dust? Plus, I also had to focus my attention on school and I also went on vacation this month, so I was very busy. But don't worry; I haven't forgotten about u guys; don't know when I'm gonna start blogging though.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

FROM JAMES CAGNEY, ROBERT DOWNEY JR., AND ME!

Here Comes the Navy (1934)

I have just recently watched the 1934 James Cagney movie Here Comes the Navy for the first time, and it was cool!! James Cagney was good as Chesty O'Connor, a cocky, can-do civilian riveter-turned-sailor (this was before the Navy became a symbol of homosexual camp) who represents the common working man of the Depression. I'm so glad I finally got to watch this movie that I so desperately wanted to see! Even though it was very different from the trailer, I must say that I pretty much liked it!! Anyway, James Cagney is with his two best buddies--Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh--in this film! Frank McHugh's role was big compared to his other roles in Cagney films, and he seemed to have a lot of lines as well as the most comedic dialogues w/ Jimmy Cagney. As for Pat O'Brien, well his and Jimmy's chemistry is very apparent even though their characters don't get along in the film. Their bromance is amazing; I have often compared them to Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, who were just as good together in Sherlock Holmes!!! And Gloria Stuart, who is almost a centigenarian now, was also good as Cagney's love interest. Anyhow, I felt very sorry for Jimmy Cagney's character earlier in the movie when he is beaten mercilessly by Pat O'Brien in a fight. And his girlfriend didn't even help him, which really sucked. (And I must add that this movie, with its nautical theme, had me longing for the beach. )

Modern-day military movies are more likely to focus on Marine special forces or Navy SEALs than on ordinary sailors, but until the Vietnam era the United States Navy had enough mystique to fuel many popular films. Here Comes the Navy, made between the world wars in 1934, is a good example. Drenched in navy atmosphere, it was filmed in real navy locations and populated with real navy extras polishing guns and swabbing decks in the background. Most impressive of all, much of the action was shot on the U.S.S. Arizona, which became legendary when Japanese aircraft sunk it in the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that propelled the U.S. into World War II. All this makes the film a natural for navy buffs and a smooth-sailing history lesson for everyone else.

The picture has good Hollywood credentials, too. Its stars are James Cagney and Pat O’Brien, making the first of their nine movies together – they did seven more for Warner Bros. and then reunited for Ragtime in 1981, the last feature for both of them. Here Comes the Navy also scored a nomination for the Best Picture Academy Award, which it lost – along with such other contenders as The Thin Man and The Gay Divorcee – to It Happened One Night, a hard movie to beat (speaking of which, I hope Avatar isn't that way @ the Oscars this year ).

While working in the shipyard, Cagney runs afoul of Biff Martin, chief petty officer of the Arizona, played by O’Brien with just a smidgen less feistiness than Cagney displays. Their squabble turns into a brawl when they compete for a woman at a dance, and when Chesty loses the fight – the lovely lady distracts him just as Biff throws his best punch – the scrappy laborer sets his sights on revenge. This is easier said than done, since Biff immediately goes to sea, so Chesty does what any self-respecting movie character would do: He joins the navy, volunteers for the Arizona, and looks forward to decking his enemy.

Eventually the two meet again, but when Chesty prepares to give Biff what’s coming to him, Biff informs him of something he should have learned in basic training: Officers rank higher than enlisted men, and if Chesty’s fists fly, the rest of his body will land in the brig. Complicating things further, Chesty sees another alluring woman and falls so much in love that he can’t give her up – even when she turns out to be Dorothy “Dot” Martin, his enemy’s loving sister. This sends all of them into a three-way feud, with Dorothy snagged between her sailor friend’s wooing and her big brother’s scolding.

Could things be any worse? You bet. Chesty sneaks off the ship to see Dorothy, and gets caught when he tries to sneak back on. Angry at being punished, he belligerently bad-mouths the navy, which shocks his shipboard buddies and turns them against him. Deciding he’s beaten all around, Chesty slinks away and transfers from battleship duty to a dirigible unit. There he shows he’s a trusty American after all, and everyone has a happy Hollywood ending.

In addition to the U.S.S. Arizona, parts of Here Comes the Navy were shot on location at real navy yards. The picture also shows maneuvers by the Pacific Fleet, and the climax -- when Chesty performs a daring rescue involving a dirigible trying to land at sea -- uses footage of the U.S.S. Macon, an American airship that was downed by a storm the following year, bringing an end to the military’s experiment with lighter-than-air vehicles. The film’s rescue scene is based on an actual incident two years earlier, when crewmen of the U.S.S. Akron held onto a blimp’s ground ropes as it lifted into the air; the real-life accident killed two men, but this didn’t stop Warner Bros. from transforming it into a chance for Chesty to save the day. Cagney did some of his own stunt work, burning his hands on a rope until they “looked like hamburger,” as he described it later.

Along with its glimpses of armed-forces history, Here Comes the Navy reflects an interesting moment in Hollywood history: It was Cagney’s first movie after the Catholic Legion of Decency gained censorship power in the industry, and Warner Bros. wanted to signal that the star’s brash personality wouldn’t be toned down as long as it kept selling tickets. That said, the movie struck some observers as unexpectedly subdued. In addition to laughs and authenticity, the reviewer for the New York Times praised it for having “the added advantage, in these parlous times, of being beyond censorial reproach.” This was especially “remarkable” in a Cagney production, the critic continued, since his “rough-and-tumble antics in several earlier pictures” had been “held up to scorn by those who would reform the screen.” While the star himself hadn’t changed his style, the reviewer wrote, “the restraining hand of the producer, writer, director (or all three), never is relinquished.”

The director who may or may not have restrained Cagney was Lloyd Bacon, whose most celebrated picture is 42nd Street, the popular Depression musical of 1933. That movie gains a lot of its pizzazz from the song-and-dance numbers staged by Busby Berkeley, and in Here Comes the Navy the military interludes serve a similar purpose, punching up a comedy-drama scenario that might easily run out of steam on its own.

The comedy episodes were enthusiastically received by the New York Times reviewer, who applauded some of “the heartiest laughs of the current cinema season” and called the finale, wherein a caterwauling old lady sings a wedding song from lyrics tattooed on her dopey son’s torso, a “perfect comedy climax.” Today’s viewers won’t be so tickled by such silliness, and it’s painful to watch the movie’s disgracefully racist material (it wasn't so painful for me to watch; trust me, I've seen worst), as when Chesty puts on blackface so he can slip off the ship among African-American sailors going on leave. Like the battleship and dirigible sequences, these are best viewed as historical artifacts from America’s not-so-distant past. Seen in this light, Here Comes the Navy has more to reveal than Cagney’s talent for high-spirited hijinks.
Here Comes the Navy is the first and best of the Cagney-O'Brien service pictures and features excellent performances by the entire cast. Cagney plays his character with just the right blend of intensity and devilish, sarcastic, Bart Simpson-like charm. Anyway, this is my favorite Cagney film next to Footlight Parade, Taxi!, and Jimmy the Gent. My prospective favorite James Cagney films, which I have yet to see, are Hard to Handle and Devil Dogs of the Air. And since I mentioned earlier that it was a contender for the 1934 Best Picture Oscar, it isn't nearly half as famous as some of its rivals, like Gay Divorcee and Thin Man. But it's just as charming and lighthearted as the two, and just as watchable, compared to some of the other 1934 films like Cleopatra and Imitation of Life.Anyway, I would recommend the film for James Cagney fans who love seeing him in military dramas. Happy commenting!!!










(Next blog [for sure]: Animal Crackers [1930])












Clips from Here Comes the Navy (1934):