White Heat is the only pure gangster film in this collection, with James Cagney playing Cody Jarrett, first seen shooting witnesses during a train robbery. Cody is brought land from the top of the crime world by a serial of flaws and mistakes: severe headaches that wind at mental illness, an obsessive relationship with his Ma, and his friendship with an undercover informant.
Cody's a villain, and he's going to fall, since the Hays Code hadn't fallen yet. However, Cagney gives him a fascinating grandeur. It won't give you wish a guy who wants one of his own gang shot because he's too injured to move, but the flaws and mistakes make the steely villain seem human. It's obvious that Cody will play a red end, and the first survey of a chemical truck gives you an idea of how it will happen. Hinting at the end, in this case, adds to the tension during the last action sequence. Look for strong performances by Margaret Wycherly (The Yearling) as Ma, who takes over the crew while Cody's in stir, and Virginia Mayo as Cody's two-faced moll, who makes time with a rival.
The comment by Drew Casper pays tribute to underrated director Raoul Walsh and takes a search at the movies of 1949. There are also details on the movie's censorship battles, which revolved around avoiding showing too often near the crimes so they couldn't be reenacted in actual life, and the composition of Cody versus conformity.
City For Conquest moves furthest away from Cagney's pugnacious image. He's a truck driver who, while certainly able in a brawl, is largely content until the ambitious people about him push him into the boxing ring. The report is called a sweeping saga of New York, but Cagney's the principal attraction as a hopeful romantic who finds himself enjoying running a newsstand and checking coins with his men at least as often as he enjoyed knocking rivals out in the ring. His first round is to serve his brother pay for music school tuition, and he's reluctant to remove his fists on the road. Even when he's at the top of the boxing game, it's clear that Cagney's Danny only wants to be with Peggy, the childhood sweetheart who dreams of stardom. When he's going through the stages of blindness, Cagney is convincing enough that you might find something when the screen blurs to catch his perspective. At the same time, it's noticeable that Danny, despite his situation, lacks the internal turmoil that you'll see in the other characters in this set. The tale is strictly melodrama, but it's even a good case for Cagney.
The comment by Richard Schickel provides a lot of setting on Cagney; you'll need to see it whether you're a diehard fan or just curious about Cagney's career.
Each Dawn I Die puts Cagney back in prison. It gives him a hazard to return to the bad guy act, eventually becoming the most unruly prisoner in the hole. However, his Frank Ross is a noble newspaperman who survives on that inner heroism, keeping his principles as inviolate as possible even when suffering in the hole, where prisoners are sent for punishment. The scene that'll hit you hardest, though, is the one in which his mom visits him in prison, and he's trying not to say her how he's been doing. George Raft plays "Hood" Stacey with a street ethical code that's tested when he finds reporters and photographers poised to get his escape attempt. When he realizes that Ross is a good guy, with a little prompting from the newspaperman's sweetheart, he's willing to gamble his freedom and his spirit to clear Ross' name. For the about part, it's a really good movie, with powerful scenes of prison life. The final reel escape goes over-the-top, though. It's exciting, but it doesn't hit as difficult as what went before.
Haden Guest's commentary tells where the censors won and where the movie pushed the Hays Code. It also discusses the cinematic techniques quite a bit.
G-Men puts Cagney in a conventional hero role, complete with cliffhanger rescue of his sweetheart at the end of the picture. His Brick Davis is a good guy, no question about it, but his street background and friendship with a top mobster play on Cagney's antihero reputation.
As I watched it, I was thought of it as a routine picture, even as I noticed that Cagney's performance was anything but routine. However, USC professor Richard Jewell's commentary puts it into historical perspective. It's the first FBI movie, and probably the first procedural as well. G-Men came out soon afterward the Hays Code geared up and prohibition wound down, and thus reflects a harsher attitude toward crime in both the movies and actual life. It also shows Cagney moving out from the gangster roles he'd become noted for. I'd say it's worth a spirit no matter what-Cagney holds your aid in only about any role-but Jewell's comments tell me I was underrating one of those archetypal films, the ones that seem familiar but really were the ones that made cinematic breakthroughs.
Jewell's commentary, along with the "Ethics and the Code: A How-To Manual for Hollywood" feature, also had me thinking once again around the censoring of the Hays Office, something I have mixed feelings about. While its decrees were often ridiculous, the tough line on gangster films directly led to the evolution of the police procedural, a still-popular genre, and probably helped Cagney's career. He may have been unhappy with the gangster image, as Jewell said, but he did get a sort of roles, as this collection shows, and the Hays Code undoubtedly helped.
White Heat, the most celebrated of the films, was unbroken in nearly pristine condition, but the early movies have small flaws-flecks or lines-that are noticeable but not unexpected or particularly annoying. It looks like Warner did the better they could with what they had, but their originals weren't in perfect shape.
The "Warner Night at the Movies" features include a good Bob Hope little and a taste of Joe McDoakes, one of the last famous short subject characters. There's also a good featurette on "Stool Pigeons and Pine Overcoats: The Words of Gangster Films," which uses Bullets or Ballots and A Little Case of Execution as favorite examples of gangster diction. I'll also note the two Lux Radio Theater segments: Each Dawn I Die has one that retools the floor to put the stress on guest George Raft, while City for Conquest puts Robert Preston and Alice Faye in the leads, letting Faye sing. Raft's turn in Aurora is especially compelling, since it tells the floor more from "Hood" Stacey's perspective.
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