Word: cagneys
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...moviegoer, Boston is decked out in a sparkling array of new films. Alec Guinness once again proves he's the master of English humor in "The Lavender Hill Mob" at the Exeter, on the street of that name. James Cagney invites everyone to "Come Fill the Cup" at the Paramount on Washington Street, while Jean Peters cuts up Bluebeard in "Anne of the Indies" at the RKO, entrances on Washington and Park Streets...
Come Fill the Cup (Warner) begins as the story of a crack newspaperman (James Cagney) who cracks up as an alcoholic. Out of a job, too wedded to the bottle to go on seeing the girl (Phyllis Thaxter) who wants to marry...
...Cagney becomes a ragged, drink-wheedling bum. Only his fright after a narrow brush with death under the wheels of a truck, and a night in the alcoholic ward, make him want to stop drinking. With the help of a reformed lush (James Gleason), he painfully succeeds, though he never loses the craving for the one drink that he knows will start him skidding downhill again...
...first third of the film, sharp dialogue, a good Cagney performance and the dramatized lore of alcoholism give Come Fill the Cup some of the kick of The Lost Weekend. But the rest is watered down with flat melodramatics...
...sober Cagney, having risen to city editor, is drafted by Publishing Tycoon Raymond Massey to reform his drunken nephew (Gig Young), now the husband of Cagney's old girl friend. The job proves mostly a matter of getting the nephew out of gangsters' clutches. The film's crude mixture of social problem and underworld formula is epitomized in the climax: a plug-ugly points a gun at Cagney and orders him to take a slug of bourbon...