James Cagney

He was perhaps more versatile than his peers, especially those he worked with at Warner Bros.  One cannot deny his versatility in observing he could handle drama, light comedy and he could sing and dance.  Imagine him doing one of his dazzling routines on the stage and then jumping off, picking up his machine gun, spraying the audience, grabbing his moll and they foxtrot out the door.  Now that's versatility.

James Cagney was one of the golden stars of Hollywood's Golden Age.  When he was on the screen in just about anything, certainly his dramas, one could not take one's eyes off him.  When I did, if I should sneak a quick look at Virginia Mayo or Doris Day, I felt like he'd stop the action and yell at me in the audience... hey, I'm emoting here.  Eyes back on me, Kid. 

I knew he was the diminutive king of gangster movies and that staccato delivery from a raspy voice kinda scared the young me.  He didn't like being a gangster and didn't much care for his gangster movies.  It's hard to believe that he didn't like a movie that featured one of his best performances, that of Cody Jarrett in White Heat.  

One reason for that was that Cody and many of his other characters were so amoral and that was as far from who Cagney really was as can be imagined.  Secondly, once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man... or so he said.  

Regardless of the type of movie Cagney was in, he gave his all.  He was always believable, his acting so honest... certainly in anything I saw.  Never relax, he said.  If you relax, the audience relaxes.  And always mean everything you say.  I believe he meant that and accomplished it.  He was so lively, so concentrated, so energized.  I thought watching him in White Heat, studying him really, was like going to film school.

He was born in 1899 on Manhattan's Lower East Side to a father who was a bartender and amateur boxer and a mother who raised four sons and a daughter.  Two sons would become physicians and the other three would be in the movie business in one form or another.  It was a close-knit family with plenty of love to spread around and that never changed throughout all their lives.

Family members found it fun that young Jim tap danced around the house so much but no one took it too seriously.  The parents were adamant that their children would amount to something and education was highly stressed.   Cagney attended Columbia College but dropped out after a year when his father died in the 1918 flu pandemic.  He had many jobs and put all his earnings toward the family.  People regarded him as a quiet, intelligent and potentially volatile young man.  The only thing that ever changed about that was the young part.

He was hanging around an amateur neighborhood playhouse where his brother Harry was performing.  Jim did everything but perform but that changed when Harry got sick.  He'd seen all the routines so often that he could have stepped into any of them.  He got his first taste of performing and knew it was for him.

Soon he was dancing in the chorus of a Broadway show which led to larger parts over a 10-year period on Broadway and in vaudeville. In 1922 he married another performer, Frances Vernon, always known as Billie or Bill.  By Hollywood's or any other standards it was a grand partnership, lasting 64 years and he was not shy about saying they were all faithful years.  They loved one another dearly.

He starred in the play Penny Arcade alongside Joan Blondell who had worked with him before and would become a lifelong friend.  Al Jolson bought the rights to the play and when he sold them to Warner Bros, it was with the proviso that Cagney and Blondell star in it.  The title was changed to Sinners' Holiday and the pair would star in seven films for the studio.

It was a gangster caper and something had started for the actor and the studio that felt like a runaway train to the young actor.  In the 30s alone Cagney made such other gangster flicks as The Doorway to Hell, Smart Money (supporting Edward G. Robinson), Blonde Crazy, Taxi, The Mayor of Hell, Lady Killer, Jimmy the Gent, He Was Her Man and G-Man... all crime flicks, some dramas, some comedies.  Bette Davis said Cagney made the gangster film artistic.

Cagney was doing so much feuding with WB that he called his brother Bill to move out west and become his manager.  He needed someone he could trust to go to battle for him.  If there was anything the Cagneys knew about it was doing battle.

He became a full-fledged star with his fourth film and the starring role as an Irish-American street hustler who becomes a crime lord in Public Enemy (1931).  He didn't want to do it and never understood what the public found so fascinating about the sadistic character he played.  Nonetheless he was quite good and would be forever famous for smashing and twisting a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face.

While the film was popular, it was probably not quite the success of Robinson's Little Caesar, released a few months earlier. Still, the combination of the two films in the same year perked up the brothers Warner and they went on a tirade for the entire decade.  Of course the lawlessness on the streets of America was every bit as prominent as anything WB put out.

The studio felt they had something special with Cagney and Robinson, soon to be followed by Humphrey Bogart and George Raft.  Everyone of them made at least one film with the others and the quartet, it's been said, were highly competitive with one another.  

The funny thing... and folks liked to mention it from time to time... was that Cagney and Robinson were genuinely nice guys when they weren't plugging someone on screen.  Bogart and Raft, on the other hand, were not particularly thought of in the same regard.  One thing they all shared was a disdain for Warner Bros.

 

Along with gangster pics, backstage musicals were a WB specialty.

Footlight Parade (1933) was such a movie and Cagney lobbied hard for the lead role of the director in the movie, his first as a song and dance man at the studio.  His three costars seemed like staples in such movies... Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler.  I thought the last was the worst dancer I've ever seen in the movies and while I've never gone gaga over Cagney's singing or dancing, their Shanghai Lil number was fun.  The film was a big success.  Cagney wanted to do more like it.

Hark, it's Cagney & Joe E.Brown doing Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) was quite the departure for Cagney and for Warners as well.  The studio was looking for a little cultsher, doncha know.  It was competing, too, with MGM which was preparing Romeo and Juliet.  Warner was going top-drawer on sets, costumes and the like for the fantasy-romance-comedy.  Cagney, of course, would do most anything to shed his tommy-guns.  But Shakespeare?   

He received fair reviews for playing Bottom, a weaver who is transformed into a donkey, but critics pointed out his obvious unfamiliarity with playing Shakespeare.  Along for the ride are Joe E. Brown as Flute, Olivia deHavilland as Hermia, Mickey Rooney as Puck and Dick Powell as Lysander, the latter two earning harsh reviews.

Shortly after arriving at the studio, Cagney and his closest pals formed a tight group based on one thing they all had in common... they were Irish.  They called themselves The Boys Club.  Along with Cagney, members were Pat O'Brien, character actors Frank McHugh, Frank Morgan and Lynne Overman and at some point Ralph Bellamy and Spencer Tracy joined in.  They spun a lot of colorful tales, played some cards and drank (although not Cagney who was practically a teetotaler).  They had one another's backs and tried to make as many films together as they could. 

Pals forever, from left: Cagney, McHugh, O'Brien, Tracy

The Irish in Us (1935) is one of those films.  It was little more than an excuse to work together.  Cagney and O'Brien are brothers vying for the attention of de Havilland.  She was an honorary member of the fraternity.

Cagney had a contentious relationship with Warner Bros almost from the time he first walked on the lot.  Darryl Zanuck was a honcho at the studio at the time and hired Cagney.  Studio head Jack Warner admitted that he did not like Cagney... ever.  He didn't think he was star material in terms of talent or looks and later found him belligerent and uncooperative.  Warner said Cagney had a lack of drawing power and wasn't as important as the actor thought he was.

Cagney's gripe was that he was shown little respect but on paper.  In his upcoming court case, it was that Warner was in violation of the contract by working him far more than had been agreed on and that Cagney wanted more say-so on the types of movies he made (a reference to gangster flicks, no doubt) and he wanted more pay.  He was also aggravated at another contractual misstep when someone else (his buddy, O'Brien, no less) was billed over him.  Warner was annoyed because so many times when Cagney was annoyed he walked off a picture and/or away from the studio.

Lookalikes Bill and Jim Cagney

In early 1936 the Cagney brothers and WB appeared in court.  Each side won a little, lost a little.  But what came out loud and clear was that Cagney was due more decent treatment.  He became a freelance actor and soon Cagney Productions would be established and he would go to work for the indie company Grand National.  Cagney would largely be his own boss but the movies he made for the company were not so successful and four years later he was back in the Warner fold.  He would continue to do battle with them as long as they worked together.

Another thing that happened in 1936 was that the Cagneys moved back east... buying a lovely spread on Martha's Vineyard.  They would for years keep a home in Southern California but would never live in the state as their main residence again.  Luckily it didn't cause a serious rift since Mrs. C loved California and Mr. C did not.

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) is certainly a crime drama and gets singled out from the rest of his gangster flicks of the decade because it's better made.  Priest Pat O'Brien and gangster Cagney are friends from childhood and living in the same neighborhood.  The Dead End Kids (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and pals) are marginally walking the right path but the priest is afraid the gangster is teaching them bad things.   Bogart is around to add some color.

Each Dawn I Die (1938) is memorable to me chiefly because again WB teamed two of its tough guys.  This time it's Cagney and Raft.  Cagney is quite good as an innocent reporter framed for murder and sent to prison.  While there he tries to find the man who framed him and more than fascinating is the help that comes from Raft.  It's a good film with one of Cagney's best 1930's performances.

He made a western with Bogart in 1939 called The Oklahoma Kid and he made just a couple more (two in the fifties, among them) and I am reminded that I didn't like Cagney in westerns.  His rough-hewn personality fit in the genre, of course, but it's his diminutive size that didn't work for me.  Seeing him climb on and sit on a horse made me question why they didn't find smaller horses for him.  When they stuck a 10-gallon hat on him he looked more foolish.  They tried hard to accommodate him with clever camera angles, lighting and such. 

Cagney hoped the end of his gangster career would finally end with his role in The Roaring Twenties (1939).  It would stall for 10 years until he made White Heat.  Here he, Bogart and Jeffrey Lynn are three soldiers returning from WWI who hope to make it big in prohibitionist New York.  Cagney turns into a particularly rotten gangster.  For your trivia file, it is this film that introduced the expression the roaring 20s.  It was never used during that actual decade.

With Rita Hayworth and Olivia de Havilland 

At the time of its release, Cagney said The Strawberry Blonde (1941) was his favorite movie as did director Raoul Walsh,  The story involves a Gay 90s dentist in love with the town's most popular young woman, played by Rita Hayworth.  She and deHavilland did something rather rare... they took the film away from Cagney.  There really isn't a lot to it but the public was overjoyed.

Most people didn't like The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) but I'm not among them.  The comedy focuses on a Hollywood pilot who flies couples to Vegas to get married and is asked by a rich man to kidnap his daughter who wants to elope with a man the father doesn't like. They hide out in the desert with a non-functioning plane.  The story is weak, the comedy is weaker but as one scribe once wrote... seeing Cagney and (Bette) Davis just standing together doing nothing is not without interest.  

I suspect most people, if asked to name a Cagney movie, would shout out Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).  Before he had signed on the dotted line, there were those who thought that Cagney, a devout liberal, was a communist or communist sympathizer.  Bill Cagney thought that to squelch these ridiculous rumors, what could be more appropriate or timely that to jump on board a musical about the biggest flag-waver in show business?

The fictionalized biography of George M. Cohan was right up Cagney's alley.  He didn't care so much about the politics of it all, he was simply giddy over doing a musical.  

Cohan, who was born on the 4th of July, was thrilled that WB was going to do his story.  In these dark days of war, an unabashedly sentimental, patriotic movie, full of love of country and family and Cohan's famous songs was just what everyone needed.

The film concentrates on the Cohan family, as entertainers known as Cohan Four and another grand old man, Walter Huston, was hired to play the father, Rosemary DeCamp played the mother and Cohan's sister was played by none other than Cagney's own sister, Jeanne.  WB ingenue Joan Leslie, at 17, plays Cohan's wife, Mary.  It was such a grand old name.

Yankee Doodle Dandy with sister Jeanne

Cagney knocked himself out learning the dance routines and it was a happy time for all.  They thought they were doing something important for the times.  This was the fifth of five films the actor would make with director Mike Curtiz, a man he didn't like but admitted he was a good director.

The film was a screaming sensation, perhaps even more than was hoped for.  He would become known the world over for this performance for which he also won the Oscar, the first of those WB gangsters to do so.  (Bogie would win in 1951 and Raft and Robinson never won.)

From 1942-44 he was president of the powerful Screen Actors Guild and apparently did some very good work.  He was also able to keep the communist rumors at bay through that work.  While he spent a lot of time on Martha's Vineyard he also worked for the USO putting on shows for troops the world over.  As had been his practice for years, he spent much time on his yacht The Martha.

After the war ended in 1945, Cagney was taken by the story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated hero of the war, and invited him to Hollywood.  Murphy became interested in a career and Cagney Productions paid for the soldier's acting and dancing lessons.  But unfortunately, though Cagney personally liked Murphy, the actor saw little promise of any acting talent and they parted ways.  It took a few more years before Murphy hired on as an actor, mainly of B westerns.

In 1948 Cagney changed political parties.  He felt Democrats were getting too wild and crazy but his friendship with Ronald Reagan (another redheaded Irishman) on the Warners lot may have had something to do with it as Reagan also changed from a Democrat to a Republican.

Cagney's work after the Cohan film and up to 1949 is fairly lackluster and sparse.  But in 1949 he and brother Bill and their  Cagney Productions got a new contract from WB.  The first new film under these arrangements was the gangster epic, White Heat (1949).  Costarring with Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly and Steve Cochran, it is a Cagney classic.  

From left: Cagney, Day, MacRae, Mayo, Nelson

He insisted that Mayo join him again for a complete change of pace,

The West Point Story (1950).  The musical-comedy is for the most part not very good, corny as hell, with it being completely apparent that Cagney was not in the same league as his musical-comedy costars Mayo, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae and Gene Nelson.  It is for the four of them that I like the movie at all and I thought seeing the five of them perform The Military Polka was great fun.  Cagney reportedly liked the movie more than most and it was his last big musical movie. 

Along with White Heat, Love Me or Leave Me (1955) is my favorite Cagney performance.  He is thoroughly unlikeable as the brutish manager-husband of 1920's chanteuse Ruth Etting, played wonderfully by Doris Day in her best film.  Though somewhat fictional, watching the two of them tear up the screen in this musical biography is a joy.  He said he didn't get to know her very well when they made The West Point Story but when this one was completed, he couldn't heap enough praise on her as a singer, actress and person.  He repeated it for the rest of his life.

The man hated how the actor roughed up Doris Day

The Seven Little Foys (1955) gave Cagney a chance to play George M. Cohan one more time and he jumped at it.  The role, however, was a cameo but a musical one where he sings and dances with Bob Hope (as vaudevillian Eddie Foy) on top of a table.  The two old pros got on well.

Also in 1955 the Cagneys moved to New York's Dutchess County where they purchased a 120-acre farm.  It would be his last home.

There were those who thought Cagney was a little out-of-step with the rest of the actors in Mister Roberts (1955) but as the captain of a navy vessel, a pariah with his men, isn't he supposed to be out-of-step?  I found Cagney, the entire cast and the film to be everything I hoped they would be.  It was reviewed earlier.  It was his final film for Warner Bros.

Another of the actor's favorite films was Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) where he played silent screen actor Lon Chaney.  Changing those faces was an actor's dream role although I thought he did a better job in the tender scenes with his son and his second wife (Jane Greer) and with his deaf parents.  Highly dramatic scenes with first wife Dorothy Malone were also most effective.  Chaney came to films as a highly dramatic actor and a song and dance man... a fact not lost on Cagney.

In 1961 he made what was thought to be his last movie... One, Two, Three.  He said he was retiring.  I thought the Billy Wilder-directed comedy was delightful.  It concerns a Coca-Cola bigwig working in West Berlin who is asked by his top exec to look after the exec's dithery daughter (Pamela Tiffin) who is coming for a visit.  She ends up upsetting everyone by marrying a headstrong, young communist (Horst Buchholz) from East Berlin, much to Cagney's annoyance.  It doesn't help that he dislikes the young man.  We'll be discussing this film soon.

In 1974 he was the second recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award.  Charlton Heston said he was one of the most significant figures of a generation when American film was dominant.  In 1980 he was among those who received the Kennedy Center Honors.    

A neighbor and friend of the Cagneys, director Milos Foreman, was making a film of E. L. Doctorow's big novel, Ragtime (1981) and wanted Cagney to have the small role (although first billing in a film that actually starred Howard Rollins Jr.) as an unscrupulous police inspector.  Of course he hadn't made a film in 20 years and he wasn't well.  He wasn't sure he was up to the filming, chiefly in England, but Billie wanted him to do it and so he did.  I loved this movie but it was not successful.  It would be his final big-screen appearance.

In 1984 President Reagan honored his friend with the Presidential Medal of Freedom award.  Cagney was deeply touched.

He was ill most of the time in the years after making Ragtime.  Among other things, his hearing and eyesight were severely compromised.  He was greatly saddened that neither he nor Billie had a good relationship with their two adopted children.

James Cagney died from heart failure at his home in 1986 at the age of 86.  Among his pallbearers were Forman, boxer Floyd Patterson, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and his only surviving friend from the Irish Boys Club days, Bellamy.  Reagan delivered the eulogy.

Though none of the following trio worked with Cagney, director Stanley Kubrick and Marlon Brando said he was their favorite actor and Orson Welles said he was maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera.

Next posting:

A musical biography