Two with Cagney

by Ari

James Cagney is one of the famous movie stars of all time, best known for his gangster pictures and musicals during the 30’s and 40’s. He appeared in over 50 features, from the glorious Busby Berkely classic Footlight Parade, to the seminal gangster epic The Roaring Twenties, to Michael Curtiz’s highly praised and hugely successful Yankee Doodle Dandy. Cagney could play charming, he could play tough, and he could play funny. Here was a man who brought a more realistic edge to the stylized, theatrical qualities of old Hollywood productions - a man brimming with energy, determination, and vigor. Cagney had a natural ability to win over the affection of the audience. You care about his characters regardless of whether he’s good or bad, an admirable trait only the best can achieve. Not to negate his villainous, edgier roles. Cagney was excellent at inspiring sympathy from his audience. He may be playing a rotten bastard from the underworld who kills at will, beats women, and laughs at the very notion of morality, but he still managed to bring out a level of understanding to the people watching him. It’s hard not like him or become totally invested in his performances. Cagney always gave the impression that whatever is happening in his films is extremely pressing and important, an actor who relished the major emotional beats of his stories. You can tell he always gave 100 percent, no matter how sophisticated or simple the character and story. Cagney is truly one of the greats.

Each Dawn I Die (1939)

William Keighley’s Each Dawn I Die is one of the most exciting crime dramas of the 30’s, a lean and suspenseful Hollywood thriller that features two excellent performances from stars James Cagney and George Raft. Keighley is probably known best for his work on The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Master of Ballantrae, both starring the always entertaining Errol Flynn. But beyond his large-scale productions, he was a solid studio director with films like the Edward G. Robinson crime thriller Bullets or Ballots and the exceptional Richard Widmark drama The Street With No Name (later remade into House of Bamboo by Sam Fuller) to his credit.

Each Dawn I Die is an intense film about a man wrongfully sent to prison and his fight for freedom and justice. While many studio pictures followed a formula that allowed them to insert whatever prevalent message they felt was necessary at the time, Keighley and his screenwriters managed to keep it relatively subtle (for the 30’s) and focus on the tense and riveting drama of the characters. Reporter Frank Ross (Cagney) is on the verge of discovering a major network of criminal activity. Before he has any chance of releasing his findings in the newspaper, the criminals capture him and frame him for murder. Ross is sent to prison, crushing his ideals of truth and justice, turning him into a bitter and angry man who must serve a sentence for something he never did. His time in prison is horrid, with strict, abusive order instilled by his guards. While his girlfriend and newspaper colleagues fight for an appeal, Ross becomes hardened by the monotonous work and unfair discipline he’s forced to endure. In prison, he meets Stacey (Raft) a gang boss who eventually befriends him and plots an escape. Ross initially declines the offer, but after all signs of justice betray him, it seems like the best idea. The deal is that if Ross rats on Stacey for killing a fellow prisoner, he can get him in court where an escape can be staged. Once Stacey is back on the outside, he can use his connections to free Ross.

The first part of their plan works. Ross rats on his friend, gets him in court, and Stacey jumps out of a window and lands on a truck that takes him away. What Ross doesn’t expect is the even harsher treatment he faces once he returns to prison and waits for Stacey to deliver on his end of the agreement. The story is an effective piece on issues of loyalty and honesty, made better by Cagney’s furious descent into madness and despair. He suffers for nothing, and tries desperately to survive the intense and cruel circumstances. Being punished with solitary confinement for months at a time is enough to drive him over the edge, and Cagney makes every moment count. His exhausted, beaten look and desperate, angry performance give the story a powerful dramatic impact. Raft is the sly and cool gangster that learns the value of trust, and he steals the show whenever he’s on-screen. Watching Cagney and Raft together is grand entertainment for anyone who appreciates classic movie stars at their finest. Each Dawn I Die is a gripping studio-system entertainment, another fine selection from Warner’s incomparable vault of Hollywood classics.

“G” Men (1935)

What seemed like a change of pace for people used to seeing Cagney as a hoodlum, “G” Men puts the star in the role of a new FBI agent looking to end a crime-wave by gangsters who murdered his friend. Brick Davis (Cagney) is a lawyer who was put through law-school by a surrogate father who wished to see him do well in life. The spin is that his surrogate father is a famous crime leader, Mac Mckay (William Harrigan). But as the film tells us, he’s actually an okay guy looking to quit the racket. Unfortunately for Davis, his career as a lawyer is going nowhere. He’s unsuccessful, with cheap crooks trying to use him for their seedy purposes. When his FBI friend Edward Buchanan (Regis Toomey) is killed by one of McKay’s uncontrollable gangsters, Davis vows to get even by joining the department of justice and catching the criminals.

One of the film’s great pleasures is watching Cagney enter the training program of the FBI under the guidance of Robert Armstrong (King Kong, Most Dangerous Game). Armstrong’s character, Jeff McCord, is a loud-mouthed officer who hates training new recruits, so he’s constantly busting Davis’ chops and putting him down. “G” Men has a standard, rather obvious and simplistic dramatic structure, but its predictability doesn’t preclude the actors from inspiring a sense of fun and excitement. Watching Cagney and Armstrong verbally and physically dispute matters is the real reason to see this film; material far more enjoyable then the war against the criminal underworld. “G” Men is supposed to document the early days of the FBI, before they were allowed to carry firearms and properly defend themselves. As the criminals rob banks and kill an increasing number of people, laws change and a full-on war between the FBI and the underworld commences. We get several sequences of 30’s mayhem as Cagney and Armstrong check off a list of wanted criminals, starting with the men that killed Buchanan.

Along the way there’s a futile attempt at romance with Cagney and a nurse who happens to be Armstrong’s sister. The women exist in this movie because no studio-system, tough-guy drama was complete without them. They always found a way for the thinly developed female interest (or in this case, interests) to be caught in the conflict, and “G” Men was no exception. Thankfully director William Keighley didn’t go outrageously overboard with sentiment or excessive romantic complications. It’s handles well enough, never becoming a ridiculous distraction from the better material involving Cagney and Armstrong. The film looks great, with excellent black and white photography and a few impressively staged shoot-outs. The violence may not be as intense as some other Cagney features, most notably The Roaring Twenties, but it’s still accomplished for the time. Lloyd Nolan (Dressed to Kill, The Street With No Name) made his feature film debut as one of the FBI agents killed in the line of duty in a strong supporting role.