James Cagney

During my childhood, which coincided with the early days of television (the 1950s), I watched a lot of old movies, which filled a lot of time slots in the new medium.  Even though I saw these adult movies on the little screen through the eyes of a child, I came to appreciate them and the actors as well.  One of my favorites was James Cagney.  

Cagney was born in New York City (Manhattan) in 1899.  At the age of twenty, he successfully auditioned as a dancer in a musical theatrical production.  So started his career in show business.  In 1930, he made his first film, Sinners' Holiday.  He made his last in 1981, Ragtime, coming out of a twenty-year retirement.

Two of his early pictures that I saw on television, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and City For Conquest (1940), made a big impression on a youthful me.  

Angels with Dirty Faces co-starred Pat O'Brien, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, and Leo Gorcey/Huntz Hall from the so-called "Dead End" Kids.  It is the story of Rocky Sullivan (Cagney), an ex-convict, who returns to his old neighborhood and his old criminal ways in New York.  He befriends some local teenagers who look up to him.

Eventually, Rocky murders his crooked business partner (Bogart) who was trying to cheat him.  Rocky is caught, convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair.  His old friend, now a Catholic priest (O'Brien), pleads with Rocky to act a coward on the day of his execution.  This would convince his gang of teenager supporters to reject Rocky and follow a path away from criminality.  Rocky says he can't do that.  He can never be a coward, even as an act.

However, when Rocky is finally walking down the corridor from his cell on death row to the electric chair, he loses his cocky ways and appears an abject coward.  The result is as the priest had hoped.  
Was Rocky a coward or was it an act?  I was curious about this question when I read Cagney's autobiography.  In it, he explained that he left it up to each viewer to decide the answer for themselves.  It was a great bit of acting on the part of Cagney, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, but lost to Spencer Tracy in Boys Town.  He won his Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1942 film, Yankee Doodle Dandy. 

City for Conquest co-starred Ann Sheridan (again), Arthur Kennedy, Anthony Quinn, Donald Crisp, and Elia Kazan (who became a legendary director - see blog post, A Contender).

It is the story of a young couple, Danny (Cagney) and Peggy (Sheridan), who grow up as childhood sweethearts in New York. However, while Danny yearns for a simple life ("I just want to be happy" - I love that line), Peggy wants to see her name in lights on Broadway.  

To fulfill her ambition, Peggy starts a career as a professional dancer, teaming up with another dancer named Murray (Quinn). Embittered that she has rejected him and the life he would have preferred, Danny embarks on his own career as a professional boxer, partially to support his brother's ambition to be a composer.

Eventually, Danny is blinded in the ring (while fighting for the championship) and winds up selling newspapers on the streets of his hometown.  Peggy's dancing career ends badly, but she reunites with Danny at his newsstand.  He had just listened on the radio to his brother (Kennedy) conducting his first symphony, City for Conquest, dedicated to Danny and the city they all love, New York.