Word: cagney
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...discreet strength; from Rollins, who carries the film with a heroic charm that sours into fatal righteousness; from Debbie Allen as Walker's doomed love; from Ted Ross and Moses Gunn as two eloquent veterans of injustice who try talking sense and restraint to Coalhouse; and from James Cagney, back on-screen after a 20-year lapse and cool as a leprechaun sphinx in the role of a wily New York City police commissioner. Only Elizabeth McGovern seems out of tune and time. She plays Evelyn Nesbit as the daffily dumb prototype for every bombshell from Marilyn...
...that Cagney would ever admit to doing anything all that complicated or rationally thought out. His strongest admiration is for people who make things look easy. Packey McFarland, a prizefighter from his youth, comes to mind...
...strain. It is a phrase that has been recurring to Cagney for as long as people have been trying to inquire into the nature of his gift. "Just a job" is another one, used to describe almost any role anyone asks about. Says Ragtime Director Milos Forman: "At first I was suspicious, but no, it is absolutely genuine. His humility toward work-that is just him. I know the word is abused, but I really think James is some kind of genius. His instincts are phenomenal. As a director, I don't have to tell him a thing. Could...
Despite Ragtime (made at his doctor's suggestion and Forman's urging), Cagney, too, could stay home. He has never enjoyed self-promotion, preferring the quiet of his 800-acre farm near Amenia, N.Y. The comfortable stone house is as simple and solid as he is. He and his wife of 58 years, Billie, occasionally entertain friends like Mikhail Baryshnikov but venture forth only rarely. They journeyed to the White House when Ragtime was screened for the President, and this week at the New York Press Club, Cagney will memorialize his old friend Robert Montgomery, who died...
They were all dancers. Cagney propelled himself through space like a bullet or a bull terrier, his torso a few seconds ahead of his legs; anyone without a dancer's equilibrium would have fallen on his face. Fonda was just the opposite: a triumph of convex geometry, his thin body a question mark that ambled at Stepin Fetchit pace toward a girl or a cause...