James Cagney

Cagney fans set your dvr’s the 1935 movie “The Irish In Us”  is on Thursday march 17 at 8:00 AM. Decent little boxing movie also starring Pat O’Brien Olivia de Havilland and Mary Gordon as “Ma O’Hara”. Not great character development but Cagney gives us reason to watch as usual. I could do without some of the attempts at comedy coming from Frank McHugh’s character but hey it’s 1935.  Check it out if you havent seen this James Cagney movie already. Keep checking back as we update this blog any time a Cagney movie is on tv.

Angels WIth Dirty Faces  1938  Where he plays Rocky Sullivan, captured by the police in a classic scene, cornered in an empty buidling with just a revlover. The tear gas, the police on megaphones, the appeal to surrender by his boyhood friend turned priest– a scene imitated to the point of cliche, but here done perfectly. It’s 1920 and Rocky (Cagney) is caught trying to rob a train. After committing other crimes Rocky is sent to reform school. Rocky get’s out after 14 years and the story gets hot after that. Angels teams him ( again ) with Bogart, Pat  [ Read More ]

I wonder, how many NEW James Cagney fans are there? Sadly I think not many. Why? It’s Simple in this day and age classic movies are not what’s cool, almost nobody  under the age of 35 is going to watch “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. Everyone is too busy with their Ipod’s Iphones and watching the next bad action movie or teen bs (Twilight). Where is the access to classic movies? If you get TCM that’s about it. Blockbuster has 130 copies of “The Blind Side” (garbage) but not one copy of The Roaring Twenties. It’s sad the current state of film  [ Read More ]

The 1931 movie Smart Money was the only movie with both James Cagney and Edward G Robinson appearing together. Why didn’t they appear together more often? The Public Enemy was actually shot before Smart Money but not released. Edward G Robinson was the bigger star at this point in time hence the leading role was Edward G Robinson’s. The interaction between the two in this movie was excellent, it’s a shame this was the lone chance they got to act together. Great flick tho, hard to find a lot of the old James Cagney movies on tv but that’s what  [ Read More ]

  All you Cagney fans remember Putty Nose from the 1931  move The Public Enemy. But did Putty nose have to die at the hands of Cagney? Did he really deserve it? let’s analyze it. When Cagney and his buddy are still kids they steal watches for putty nose and it seems putty short changes them. When they are even older in 1915 Putty Nose offers them a part in a Bigger job. They screw it up one of the gang is killed and upon returning to putty nose he has left town and leaves them high and dry. It  [ Read More ]

GREAT GUY (1936) James Cagney broke his contract with Warner brothers after becoming fed up with what he thought were bad movies they were giving him.  Cagney took off a year from working in movies and then signed with National in 1936 and made “The Great Guy” among others.   Shown here is a very rare non warner brothers half sheet (22×28) from the peak of Cagneys career.

James Cagney   Classic bad guy gangster pose from the great James Cagney