I was in the mood for a pre-code Jimmy Cagney, and of the ones we hadn't seen, I picked this one. It's certainly one of the Jimmy Cagney-est ones, which is to say it's a bit reliant on his charms to make you ignore its faults. It begins with the ushers of an obviously palatial cinema (there's a small army of them, all wearing natty uniforms) being marshaled military-fashion (they even sound off). Cagney's Dan Quigley
shows up late, smacking gum and with dice in his fist (the man in charge had talked darkly of the mens' lavatories (I was surprised to hear the word "lavatories" - maybe that's pre-code for you) being used for craps games (seems appropriate) and he's given a "this is your last chance" speech when they are discovered.
The last chance is rather unfairly lost when he prevents a woman bringing her toy dog inside and she takes offense. Now a free man, he is showing off his dice-throwing prowess to a shopgirl, who may or may not be a girlfriend, when he spots an attractive woman sitting a little ways off in the department store. After clearly spotting him, she sets off out of the store, dropping her purse as she goes. He runs after her to return it but she's already sped off in a taxi. Fortunately, there's a card with her name (Myra Gale) and address in it, so he tracks her down to her apartment. She invites him in for a drink, whereupon a man, supposedly her brother in law, comes in from an adjourning room and lets Dan know they've got a card game going in there. Eager to show off his prowess, Dan asks to join. Sadly, the cards are against him and he is cleaned out, and leaves ruefully. But on the stairs he bumps into a man who asks where Myra Gale's apartment is as she dropped her purse and he's returning it. As always with Cagney, you can see the cogs turning on his face and he offers to return it for the man, whereupon he bursts in and demands his money back. But as they hear another knock on the door (we've already had a peek inside Myra's desk drawer and it's chock-a-block with purses) he changes his mind and announces that he's going to show them how it's done, and promises them if they stick with him they'll be pulling in a thousand a week each. Flash forward who-knows-how-long and they own a club and they're getting ten times that. The next rung up on their life of crime begins when a famous widow-of-a-plutocrat walks in the club and they get the idea of getting inside her mansion to case it. This is done the next day when, as she's being driven out of her driveway, Dan crashes into her in his car and a "doctor" appears and insists that he be taken somewhere to lie down. The unsuspecting widow volunteers her sitting room and unwisely leaves him there, where he takes the opportunity to case the joint. Then his more thuggish accomplices do the actual robbery. However, one of them is a bit too handy with a cosh, and eventually a butler dies from the blows to the head he keeps doling out
and the gang has to flee the nightclub as the cops raid the joint. Dan and Myra (who is played by Mae Clark, who famously was the girl Cagney smushed a grapefruit in the face of in Public Enemy) flee to a station where they debate where to head next. Florida is ruled out as being hurricane-prone, but gum thrown at a spinning globe settles on LA as a destination, in part because of a brochure promising constant sunshine. So of course the train pulls up in a torrential downpour, and worse yet there is a welcoming committee and Dan is pulled in for questioning. Meanwhile, Myra's "brother in law" (who clearly never really liked Dan taking over the gang) Duke bumps into her and persuades her to go on the lam to Mexico City. Before they leave, Duke calls her and says he's sending over his lawyer to pick up bail money, but of course they've disappeared by the time the lawyer arrives. However, charges are dropped before the trial, so Dan is free to go, although he's warned to leave LA. He doesn't, and we see an unshaven Dan supping coffee some time later when some trench-coated types spot him and shout out that they want to talk to him. Fearing the fuzz he tries to escape but runs into a uniformed copper, allowing the men to catch up, and it turns out they're just talent scouts for the movies who like his mug. And immediately he is showing his mettle in a prison break picture where he takes cinema verite too far and actually knocks the guard out. He's playing an Indian Chief in another picture (there is a comical scene of all of the white actors getting painted to play Indians
(I can't help but think this is a sly indictment, because actually this film has a lot more non-white actors in it than most films of this era, and none of them demeaning caricatures)) when, having a 15 minutes break after a grueling scene on a mechanical horse
he finds an open trailer where he can lie down (rather than sit on his too-sore backside) and meets actual movie star Lois Underwood, who turns out to be super nice and takes a shine to him.
And then his cunning method of writing hundreds of letters a day to the studio claiming to be from his fan club gets him bumped up to starring vehicles, and pretty soon, he's made it! All is well, except that there is one critic writing nasty things about Lois
who has to be taught a lesson in a bathroom...
And then, of course, the old gang shows up, threatening to reveal his past if he doesn't help them to case movie stars' houses. The first to appear is Myra, who is draped over his bed
when he brings Lois home, which causes her to ditch him (and not need the garlic in a comical scene
in a film directed by an Italian director who swears by realism to be repulsed by Dan's kisses). Will Dan be able to get rid of the gang?
Will he persuade Lois that Myra means nothing to him? Let's just say this movie knows its job is to entertain (I see that the first two adjectives used to describe its director Roy Del Ruth on his Rotten Tomatoes page are "competent" and "capable") and what is any Cagney film without a car chase and a shootout? Not one for the Cagney pantheon, although it never lags and everyone acquits themselves well, with Mae Clark a particular standout.
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