City for Conquest (1940)

I recently just watched the 1940 James Cagney movie City for Conquest, and it was dramatically entertaining. James Cagney was absolutely fantastic as Danny Kenny, a truck driver-turned-professional boxer who turns blind after a bout with a boxer with rosin on his gloves. His performance turned the film from clichéd to exciting. To put it simply, he made the film worth watching.

The film also features young actor Elia Kazan, the future director of On the Waterfront (1954) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1954). If it weren't for Elia Kazan, this movie might have been totally obscure. Anthony Quinn was also in this film but I didn't like him; I thought he wasn't a famous actor but I guess I was wrong. Ann Sheridan was also good but she was kind of a crybaby in this movie. No offense, but I thought the film all together was corny—and Ann Sheridan's constant crying drove it right to the edge of corniness. And the kid actors who were supposed to be playing the main characters as children were too much from California to be talking with New York accents. That's my complaint!

Of course, I felt sorry for James Cagney after he became blind (and I especially felt sorry for him when he was getting hit mercilessly in his last fight but did not feel sorry for him when he got a depressing letter from Sheridan about her prolonged tour) but the rest of the characters I did not care about when their dreams didn't come true—even though I had sympathy for Ann Sheridan's future plans.

I didn't really watch the big orchestra number with the orchestra conducted by James Cagney's character's brother because it was a little bit too saccharine. And I didn't really cry at the very ending scene, which is supposed to be a tearjerker, where Ann Sheridan visits James Cagney at the newspaper stand where he now works. Elia Kazan admired James Cagney on set of this film since Cagney was his own pragmatic self and left the set promptly at his own time, no matter if a scene wasn't finished yet. I would recommend this film for James Cagney fans who like watching him in melodramatic films. Again, you folks may comment on this film with your opinions about it, but I'm not forcing you to.

Angel with Dirty Faces (1938)

Recently, I've been watching the famous James Cagney film from 1938, Angels with Dirty Faces, but not for the first time of course. This was one of Cagney's important films as well as one of the most important films in film history (the scene where Rocky Sullivan turns yellow when going to the electric chair is one of the finest scenes in cinematic history). It was directed by Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca—another cinematic masterpiece—and some of James Cagney's other finest pictures, including Yankee Doodle Dandy.

When I saw the trailer before seeing the film for the first time, I was wondering what Humphrey Bogart was doing in a James Cagney picture. I didn't even know that Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney knew or worked together, but apparently this film proved me wrong. But still, Humphrey Bogart was pretty good, and Pat O'Brien was great playing Cagney's childhood friend-turned-priest. Ann Sheridan was good but I wish she didn't interfere with James Cagney's characters. The Dead End Kids really entertained me with their physical humor, particularly during the basketball game, and it was also nice to see people my age in this film. (Speaking of physical humor, one of the Dead End Kids, Leo Gorcey, did a radio show

with Groucho Marx later on.) And as always, James Cagney really amazed me in this film. In the scene where he slaps Leo Gorcey across the face with the envelope containing the crooked money, I was spellbound by Cagney's character. I liked the scene where Pat O'Brien visits James Cagney in prison and asks him to turn yellow at the electric chair for the sake of the Dead End Kids' morality. (Of course, Rocky Sullivan never gives up his aggression as he pushes the guards away when they come to get him & take him to the electric chair.) But did Rocky Sullivan really turn yellow at the electric chair or did he do it as a favor for his friend? I don't know; that is the question. Of course, I think the whole Rocky screaming scene was too dramatic so I don't really watch it. The same goes for the shootout Rocky has with the police in a warehouse near the end of the film. Real bullets, like in The Public Enemy, were used during the filming of the shootout scene and Curtiz wanted Cagney to put his head in a particular place in a window where the police would shoot at him. But of course, Cagney refused, and it's a good thing he refused too because if Cagney had obeyed Michael Curtiz and put his head in the window, there wouldn't have a Yankee Doodle Dandy years later.

There is actually a half-parody/half-reference to this movie in The Simpsons in a Season 19 episode called I Don't Want to Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this episode, Marge makes a lonely bank robber (voiced by Steve Buscemi) turn himself in by promising him that she'll visit him in prison. However, Marge keeps putting off visiting the poor prisoner so much that he becomes embittered. Then, one night, Marge watches a prison movie called A Kiss Before Frying (which is supposedly a take on some movie title), which is about a prisoner who is confident that his mother will visit him before he goes to the electric chair. Of course, the mother never visits her son and she doesn't show up at his frying, so the son dies yelling, "MAAAAAAAAA!" Now what's interesting is that the character in the movie is supposed look like Cagney in this movie, and actually has the same attitude toward the electric chair that Cagney had. Now I forgot what the character looked like because the last time I saw the episoode, I wasn't interested in Cagney yet, so I wanna see it again.

I also thought the music score was great and beautiful. The guy who composed the score is actually the same guy who composed the score for Casablanca, so you know it's that good. This movie is a must for any James Cagney fan—it was the second James Cagney movie I saw—because it was one of his finest performances, if not his best. (Note: He got the "Whaddya hear, whaddya say" mannerism or whatever from a boy he knew during his childhood in New York's Hell Kitchen.)

Clips from Angels with Dirty Faces:

The parody/reference of this movie from The Simpsons episode:

1904

Torrid Zone

I just thought that my first post on this blog could be my Torrid Zone film review blog from the CFU. Enjoy and comment all you want!

I just recently watched the 1940 James Cagney movie Torrid Zone, but not for the first time, and it was sort of fun, but I couldn't really bring myself to watch it. To me, the film is an inferior adaptation of Casablanca—though made two years before—with a Central American version of Casablanca's French Morocco locale (same smoky bar environment). It also seems to be Warner Bros.' response to Columbia Pictures' film from the year before, Only Angels Have Wings (directed by Howard Hawks), with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur (same locale); however, both of the films' plotlines are totally different so Torrid Zone isn't officially Warners' response to Only Angels Have Wings. (Though if you ask me, Only Angels Have Wings is like Torrid Zone and Ceiling Zero [another movie James Cagney made with Pat O'Brien] combined together.) Anyway, as always, James Cagney makes the film worth watching and is enjoyable as Nick Butler, the cocky banana plantation worker from Chicago. But again, he has that same pencil-thin mustache that he wore in previous movies such as Lady Killer (1933), He Was Her Man (1934), etc; for the second time, Cagney just isn't Cagney if he's wearing a mustache—and I for one don't take him seriously when I see him in that thing. Despite Jimmy Cagney being the star of the film, it was really Ann Sheridan's movie since she stole every scene that she was in. Pat O'Brien was okay as the authorative plantation owner but he was also kinda loud. Nevertheless, according to a book called Warners Wiseguys (which is about the 112 films that Cagney, Bogart, and Robinson made for the studio), the film wasn't all that great:

Jim hated the project from the moment he received the script, initially refused to do it, then capitulated when
the studio had nothing else for him to do. To play Nick Butler, overseer of a
Latin American banana plantation, he decided not to shave a pencil-thin
mustache, just to aggravate Jack Warner and Hal Wallis, who thought the facial
hair lessened his tough-guy appeal. Cagney had to act in the film with a
left-hand injury, the result of a shooting accident that occurred when he tried
to drive away coyotes from the henhouse he kept on his Coldwater Canyon estate.
Though he promoted the picture as “Horrid Zone” on The Edgar Bergen and Charlie
McCarthy Show, he did appreciate spending more time with Pat O’Brien and Ann
Sheridan. The stunning cinematography of James Wong Howe is wasted on Macauley
and Wald’s atrocious script, [which is] an endless parade, of ethnic
stereotypes, unfunny attempts at humor, and dreadful dialogue adding up to one
of the most embarrassing projects released by Warner Bros. during the Golden
Age…The nearly nonexistent plot of Torrid Zone isn’t the film’s biggest defect.
The milieu involving white overseers and “native” laborers in a plantation
system smacks of slavery, and the fact that Caucasian actors play all the Latino
speaking parts makes this element even more obnoxious…White actors in brownface
speaking pidgin English provide an ironic contrast to the actual Latino actors
relegated to non-speaking extra parts. Torrid Zone’s facetious depiction of the
ethnic characters differs from the serious portrayals in The Hatchet Man and
Virginia City…Pat O’Brien’s entire performance is consistently annoying, as he
(obviously believing the material beneath him) practically yells his way through
the entire film. Cagney and Sheridan, on the other hand, appear to ignore the
inferior script by giving their usual polished portrayals…Cagney works in his
usual quota of physical action: kicking the ship’s [where he meets Sheridan]
skipper overboard (twice); engaging in some “broad bashing” by holding Sheridan
upside down to shake loose the $300 she won in her crooked game; and punching
out Sancho and Carlos [bandits], two men larger than himself. The white hat Jim
wears throughout the film, rivaling his Oklahoma Kid 10-gallon in absurdity,
adds some camp to his generally straightforward performance. The film’s closing
line also offers an in-joke, referring to Sheridan. Holding [Sheridan] in his
arms, [Cagney] admits that he’s staying for “you and your 14-carat oomph.”
The ethnocentric dialogue contradicts Warner Bros.’ traditionally progressive
values. After the studio produced films exploring incarceration, institutional
abuses and capital punishment, Torrid Zone (supposedly a comedy) arrived in
theaters replete with jokes about execution…

...and I sort of agree with the book and I don't blame Cagney for not wanting to do this film. However, I did like the scene where Pat O'Brien abruptly and rudely knocks Jim Cagney out of bed (and La-la Land). I thought the scene did a good job of making fun of lazybones Cagney, who wasn't exactly lazy but his character is supposed to be a lazy ne'er-do-well. I didn't really watch the gunfight between Cagney and the Latino bandits because I thought it was too dramatic. This film was to mark the last time James Cagney and Pat O'Brien were teamed together on the screen until 40 years later when they would be teamed together for the last time in their whole film careers in Ragtime (1981)—after Cagney would come out of his 20-year retirement. And despite having an invisible plotline, this film did pretty well at the box-office. I wouldn't really recommend this movie for a James Cagney fan but then again, I would recommend it. Again, you folks may comment wiith your own opinions on this film but you don't have to.

(Next blog: A Midsummer Night's Dream [1935])

Warners Bloopers Reel, which includes this film (well, mostly this film).

Caution: Side-splittingly funny!