Word: cagney
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Public Enemy and Little Caesarare gems of toughness. James Cagney and Edward Robinson attack the problem of being mean and shiftless cancers on the social body with little reserve and less delicacy. Instead, they set patterns of tough-man acting that have haunted their subsequent careers. Cagney is the cocky bantam hoodlum, swaggering and posturing, with words dropping from the side of his mouth in chunks and gushes. His favorite stance is with one hand grasping a terrified speak-easy proprietor by the shirt front while two fingers of the other hand are poised to jab out stricken eyes. Robinson...
...camera watches while the mobsters go back to the gutter, each weighing several pounds more than he had immediately before death. Since both are rather antique, the photography, sound, and much of the acting and direction are adolescent by modern standards. It is mostly the superior villainy of Messers. Cagney and Robinson that makes the films wonderful. Cagney brushes grapefruits into his lovely breakfast partner's face--no, not Jean Harlow, he meets her later. And in addition to his badness he is Loyal, Friendly, Helpful, Kind, Obedient, and in fact possess most of the handbook virtues, making him popular...
Classics, these pictures are, and great fun, too. Swagger and bullets, with men like Cagney and Robinson dispensing both, are unbeatable...
Recent months have proved that a movie in three dimensions does not necessarily have depth; A Lion is in the Streets demonstrates that a picture in Technicolor is not necessarily colorful. In fact, in every respect bur one, this film is drab and pale. The exception is James Cagney's portrayal of Hank Martin, the ambitious backwoods peddler who almost "lynched a whole state." Against the rest of the film, Martin stands out like a Lutree potrait superimposed on a black-and-white pencil sketch...
...elsewhere. Martin is undoubtedly a remarkable and enigmatic character: a man who was seemingly a sincere spreader for the "little man everywhere" and yet was capable of calculating ruthlessness; one who drew people to him by his personal dynamism and then twisted and used them for his own purposes. Cagney's leonine, forceful acting paints a convincing picture of the figure who could drag a dying man onto the witness chair to further his own political ambitions...