We have yet to be let down by Jimmy Cagney, and this film has his second most iconic death scene (after White Heat - "Made it Ma! Top of the world!" - of course). Apparently this film (one of the Criterion haul I mentioned earlier) used to be much better known, and in constant rotation on some television channels, but has since receded in a way that White Heat and Public Enemy haven't.
Maybe it doesn't fit today's cynical worldview, because Jimmy Cagney's Eddie Bartlett is largely sympathetic (in contrast with his character in those other two), although Humphrey Bogart's complete rotter more than makes up for it (in contrast with his much more nuanced later performances). The two meet right at the beginning in a fox hole in WWI, and they're also joined by the third male lead (Lloyd, played by a rather anonymous actor called Jeffrey Lynn), whom Bogart's George takes an instant dislike to, because he was conscripted out of law school and is honest about his fear under fire. We see a bit of their army life, including George butting heads with their sergeant (foreshadowing), Eddie getting lots of letters from what looks from her photo to be dishy woman in her early 20s, and George shooting a German that Lloyd refuses to because he looks about 15 ("Well, he won't see 16!") literally seconds before they hear about armistice. Then they go their separate ways back to their lives. We actually don't see George for a good long stretch of the movie, although he has told us that he's in the bar business and is confident that the upcoming Prohibition won't put a dent in it. Eddie, meanwhile, returns to the boarding house he lived in before the war, and his none-too-bright cab-driving buddy Danny. But he finds that his job at the garage has been taken while he's away, although the two mechanics who mock him on the way out live to regret it as he knocks them out with a single punch ("Two for one!").
Danny suggests that Eddie use his cab in the 12 hours a day that he's not using it, and Eddie agrees, but just then their landlady brings a letter that's just been forwarded from France, the last from his mysterious female admirer, who, it turns out, lives half an hour away by Danny's cab (or an hour if the passenger doesn't know the map, says Danny) in Mineola. They visit and find that she's actually a schoolgirl, the photo implying otherwise having been taken from a performance in a play.
Ruefully, Eddie departs. "Will I see you again?" says the girl (Jean, played by singer Priscilla Lane) "Maybe in three years when you've grown up" (more foreshadowing). The whole film, by the way, is bookended and interspersed with a voiceover, supposedly of a famous newspaper columnist who covered the seedier aspects of the decade, and who claims that this is all true. At this point in the movie we get an explanation of the effects of prohibition, and we see Eddie, now driving the taxi, getting sucked in, as he is asked by a passenger to deliver a package to somebody called "Panama" inside. This he does, calling out loudly as he enters, much to her consternation, as he attracts the attention of two G-men, who find bottles of alcohol in the package and haul off the protesting (for different reasons) Eddie and Panama. Eddie calls on Lloyd, who is now a practicing lawyer, and while he gets Panama off, Eddie either has to pay $100 or spend 60 days in jail. As he has no hope of the former, it has to be the latter (and his cellmate is another ex-soldier who is threatening suicide, something that makes Eddie feel like maybe he doesn't have it so bad). Very quickly, though, Eddie is bailed out by Danny, who was given the money by Panama,
who invites him into the speakeasy business (because she sees a core loyalty and decency in him, ironically) and Eddie is on the fast climb up to being a Big Shot. He employs Lloyd to help him buy taxis, because he is smart enough to worry about how long this will last, and he wants a legit business to fall back on. Along the way, while collecting a debt from a Broadway showrunner, he encounters Jean again and is fully smitten, and sets her up as a singer in the club he and Panama have been supplying and using as a base. He shows her how he makes his own (lousy) alcohol in bathtub stills
and puts fake labels and even fake sea-salt smell on the bottles (as his team of ex-cons tell the people they sell it to that it's all imported). However, he knows that he can only go so far with the bad stuff and wants to cut a deal with another Big Shot, Nick Brown, who really does import the good stuff. Brown brushes him off, so Eddie resolves to hit his boat while disguised as the coast guard. And guess who's captaining that boat? George.
George is impressed enough with Eddie's moxie that he puts in his lot with him, and they go from strength to strength. However, two dark shadows are looming: one is that George is chafing as second-in-command (and Nick is out for revenge), and two is that Lloyd and Jean are making cow-eyes at each other, something Panama and George spot immediately, but Eddie (who is a bit thick sometimes, as seen in the initial incident whereby he doesn't know he's ferrying liquor around) doesn't. Things happen - Eddie ensures that the feds seize another shipment of Nick's, and then Eddie and his gang steal it from a storage facility - but not before George encounters his ex-sergeant, now working as a security guard, and fulfills a promise. Nick kills Danny. Eddie goes to take revenge, and George warns Nick, hoping he will bump off Eddie for him. But Eddie wins out and begrudgingly spares George's life. Eddie loses Jean to Lloyd, forgives them, but (having been a strict teetotaler up to this point) decides to sample his own supply to drown his sorrows.
And then - Black Friday. Eddie has to come up with $200,000 in a hurry - and George is there to take advantage. All of Eddie's precious back-up cab business is lost... except George leaves him one cab. But Panama sticks by him. Eddie one day picks up Jean and she shows him their nice house and four year old son (who dresses like a cowboy and boasts of killing Indians - little charmer). Lloyd is now the DA and is pursuing George, but Eddie reminds Lloyd how George deals with squealers. Then George's hoods come to the house and threaten Jean if Lloyd doesn't drop the case. She finds a drunken wreck of an Eddie in a bar where Panama sings and begs him for help. He refuses, but after she leaves, Panama talks him round. Cue the final showdown with George...
Verdict: Cagney is amazing. This is one of his more subtle performances - we don't get the wild rages or strutting that you see in his earlier stuff. The film was fairly radical for its great use of closeups, and they reveal the full range of Cagney's supremely expressive face. There's a famous scene in a great neo-gangster movie, The Long Good Friday, when Bob Hoskins realizes his time is up and you see every emotion flit across his face in succession, and there's one very similar here. But Eddie isn't going down easy! This is a bit of an epic at nearly 2 hours, and the first hour is a bit hackneyed, but it certainly builds, and the last third of the film holds you tightly in its grip. Come to me, my melancholy baby.
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