Latest Updates - Raoul Walsh

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Notice also, how they have straight up lifted the portrait of Cagney on the cover of the Angels With Dirty Faces DVD for the cover of this DVD.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

The best of the bunch.

This was the last Cagney movie in the box set I have, and not the most well known (to me at least), having no particular notoriety for iconic moments or lines like White Heat, Angels With Dirty Faces, or The Public Enemy, but for me, this one is by far the best, most well rounded movie of them all.

Mostly, I think, precisely because it is Cagney's most naturalistic, subtle, and nuanced character and performance - not relying on meme-able moments.

This is a complete, and very interesting character - basically a good guy who finds himself winding up in the bad guy business - the hero cast as the baddy.

Again, I see huge influence on The Godfather in this regard, but instead of the young innocent Michael Corleone becoming ever more corrupted and lost, Cagney's character slips away somewhat, but ultimately recovers and redeems himself (although the good guy never entirely goes away).

Set against the backdrop of the great events of the time, it's a more intimate portrait of a handful of characters as they seek to influence the times, just as they are influenced by them...

(setting a personal tale / tragedy against great historical events is always the key to giving it a sense of the epic, in scale, and poignancy in my view, and all the best epic / personal stories do this - acting as a frame for the more intimate story being told)

...From the trenches of the first world war, Eddie returns home to find his job gone, and the influx of returning soldiers and the hardship of the cost of living, he falls into the less than legal activities which are made possible by prohibition, the Wall Street Crash, and finally the repeal of Prohibition, against which, his fortunes rise and fall.

And what with the other characters and the shifting dynamics between them over time, there's much more in this movie than those others.

Cagney is brilliant here, Bogart is an excellent bad guy, and the story is excellently told.