Word: cagney
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film, Little Caesar, was made in 1930, depicting the gang wars of the '20s. It made an over-night star of Edward G. Robinson ("Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?") and did smashingly well at the box-office. In 1931, Public Enemy followed suit with James Cagney as Tom Powers, a punk kid who becomes a tough-guy criminal. These movies were stories about gangsters' lives. They professed to deter crime by warning the public about violence in the streets, but managed instead to glamourize the gangster as a rebel hero. It was because of the brilliant...
...James Cagney was spellbinding in White Heat (1949) as Cody Jarret, a maniacal hoodlum slowly losing his mind. When Cagney goes totally mad, blowing himself up with his famous line "Here I am, Ma, top of the world!", we have seen what pushed Cagney to his end. We are totally immersed in the tension Cagney builds up. All of the action has brought us closer to an understanding of his life, inspiring a fascination with the terror of his homicidal insanity...
...schedule because the Welles holds week long festivals at least one of which will be worth planning ahead for. Cambridge's other three theaters--the Brattle, the Harvard Square, and the Central are all under the same ownership. The Brattle specializes in classic, popular and auteur revivals--Cagney and Bogart will be big there this summer. Harvard Square usually features first run films about six months after their original distribution--so if you can't afford Tango now, or if you refuse on principle to pay the $4.50 asking price, wait a while; it won't be too long...
Always an adept actor, Caine is splendid here. His King, quintessentially seedy, strikes just the proper balance between calculated mediocrity and droll detachment. As Gilbert, Mickey Rooney is equal parts Robinson, Cagney and miniature tornado. It is a broad performance, but Hodges draws firm boundaries for it, which Rooney straddles occasionally but never oversteps. The performance, like the movie itself, deserves to become some crazy kind of minor classic...
Shake Hands With the Devil. Imagine James Cagney in the unlikely role of a professor at the College of Surgeons who doubles as a leader in the Irish Revolution. That's only a minor problem for this film. The dialogue, the direction, and the gratuitous sexual innuendo all work hard to negate the intrinsic historical interest of the period. It's a tough fight...