Honor Among Lovers (1931)

Julia Traynor (Claudette Colbert) works for Jerry Stafford (Frederic March), a successful stockbroker and playboy who has suddenly realized his affection for Julia. When he asks her to join him on a cruise, she declines the offer and tells him she expects more from a man, like marriage and a home. However, Jerry is persistent and in the hope of not doing something rash, Julia does something…rash. She marries her current beau Philip Craig (Monroe Owsley), a struggling securities broker with a jealous streak. When Jerry learns that Julia has tied the knot, he fires her stating he can’t work with her and want her too. He does later relent and hires Philip to handle some of his stocks. Eventually, Julia realizes her mistake in marrying Phillip, besides not being very happy, she learns that Philip has been embezzling company funds to play the market on his own. After a downturn in the silk market wipes him out, Julia discovers that he owes all his clients, including Jerry, money. In order to keep Phillip from jail, Julia offers herself to Jerry in exchange for a loan but he refuses to take advantage of her but gives her the money she needs. Philip doesn’t believe Julia got the money without returning favors and he goes after Jerry in a jealous rage. After shooting Jerry by accident, Philip fearfully puts the blame on Julia. After a sensational trial that actually has Philip coming out on the positive end, Julia, who has been working to support Phillip, feels she has done her part and is divorcing him. Lucky for her, Jerry is there to take her on that long-awaited cruise.

Though another predictable drama with far-fetched situations, Honor Among Lovers addresses some pretty racy subjects like pre-marital and extra-marital sexual relationships. March is convincing as a playboy-cum-love sick man but his silly moustache (probably leftover from his Barrymore stint in The Royal Family of Broadway and further displayed in his next movie The Night Angel) leaves something to be desired. Colbert is simply gorgeous in her stunning clothes and displays a perfect balance of weakness and strength.
Honor Among Lovers also feature comic relief from Charles Ruggles and a very young Ginger Rogers. Apparently Pat O'Brien, in what would be his second film, is part of the supporting cast as a man named Conroy. Personally, I totally missed that and can only guess he was a part of the board meeting in the beginning of the film.

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien) grew up together in a tough part of New York. When Rocky gets caught for a crime both he and Jerry committed he advises Jerry to keep his mouth shut about confessing to the crime as well. Rocky is sent off to reform school and a future full of crime while Jerry goes straight and becomes a priest and mentor to the neighborhood kids.
As adults, Rocky and Jerry are reunited when Rocky returns to the old neighborhood looking for a safe place to stay until he can collect money owed to him from his crooked lawyer Frazier (Humphrey Bogart) and get back into his old racketeering ways. Unfortunately, Frazier isn’t so keen on letting that money go or letting Rocky get back into the business. Meanwhile, though Jerry is happy to see Rocky, he’s worried about Rocky’s influence on some of the more challenging kids of the neighborhood. When Rocky is falsely arrested and then let go through coercion from the gang he is blackmailing, Jerry takes it into his own hands to clean up the streets and the police department that’s doing shady business. Both Jerry and Frazier’s efforts lead Rocky to murder and when he is caught he’s sentenced to the chair.
Before being put to death, Jerry visits Rocky with one request- turn yellow. He doesn’t want Rocky to become a hero to the kids of the neighborhood by acting tough to the very end. Rocky refuses but as he is led toward the death chamber he suddenly begins to wail and beg to be let go.

Another picture cementing Cagney’s tough-guy image which he found a bit wearisome as he always considered himself a song-and-dance kind of man. Cagney said he was challenged in public more than once by “backyard weight lifters” who had something to prove.
Overall, the movie was another of your garden variety gangsters flicks complete with your post-code moral message. The brightest part of the movie was Cagney, who by this point was so used to playing characters of this ilk that he started to add memorable little quirks to freshen up the theme and differentiate one gangster role from another.


Side note:

Cagney: Through the years I have actually had little kids come up to me on the street and ask, “Didya do it for the father, huh?” I think looking at the film it is virtually impossible to say which course Rocky took- which is just the way I wanted it. I played it with deliberate ambiguity so that the spectator can take his choice. It seems to me it works out fine in either case. You have to decide. -Cagney by Cagney


Tonight on TCM!
The More the Merrier (1943) The World War II housing shortage brings three people together for an unlikely romance.Cast: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines Dir: George Stevens

Torrid Zone (1940)

Tough boss Steve Case (Pat O'Brien) pulls a few underhanded tricks to keep his top man Nick Butler (Cagney) from quitting the banana business located in Central America. Complicating the plot is a nightclub singer, Lee Donley (Anne Sheridan), who Case decides needs to leave the area despite Lee needing the work. Dealing with guerilla warfare for plantation ownership and an incompetent plantation supervisor with a bored housewife, when Lee and Nick meet and hit it off, Steve’s got more than he can handle.
Torrid Zone, one of nine films featuring James Cagney and Pat O’Brien, is full of insults, quips and double entendres being thrown around at break neck speed. Add in “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan and warbling ole Andy Devine and you have yourself a comedy goldmine. Cagney stomping around in a floppy straw hat is comical by itself!


Lee Donley: [picking up a cigarette dropped by Gloria] I believe this is how the Chicago fire got started.
Gloria Anderson: The Chicago fire was started by a cow.
Lee Donley: History repeats itself.


Police Chief Juan Rodriguez: [arguing with Case on the phone] After a good night's sleep a man doesn't mind being shot, but during siesta? [a pause while he listens]
Police Chief Juan Rodriguez: All right, all right! Si, senor. We... we give him a permanent siesta - we shoot him right away.


Wally Davis: A house doesn't have to fall on me.
Nick Butler: It might help.


Lee Donley: [to Case] Mister, the stork that brought you must have been a vulture.


Lee Donley: [to Nick] I don't want to put you out. I'll take in washing for my room and board. Wally Davis: [slightly lasciviously] Well, I got a couple of buttons that could stand sewing. Lee Donley: [sarcastically] Shirts, I suppose.


Nick Butler: Oh, Lee, if you see Case, give him a kiss for me.
Lee Donley: Not even a foreign general would kiss that guy!


Lee Donley: Why don't you send that mind of yours out and have it dry-cleaned.
Nick Butler: What's the use? Look at the company I'm in.
Lee Donley: You won't be for long!


Lee Donley: [as Gloria enters] Here comes Malicious.
Nick Butler: Can that talk!
Lee Donley: Well, some days a girl can't make a cent!
Gloria Anderson: I don't imagine you have any trouble.
Lee Donley: Why do you walk around making noises like a lady? All a guy has to do is wink and he hits the jackpot.


Mr. Steve Case: [walking in while Lee and Nick are kissing] Necking like a couple of high school kids!
Lee Donley: [wisecracking] You interrupted a post-graduate course.


Lee Donley: [cutting off Nick's shirt so she can dress his wound] Oh did I hurt you?
Nick Butler: [sarcastically] Oh, no. How could you hurt me by sticking a scissors in my arm?


Gloria Anderson: But, Nick, aren't you going to Chicago?
Nick Butler: Sure.
Gloria Anderson: [realizing he is going with Lee, not her] Oh, I get it!
Gloria Anderson: You finally stepped down to your own level!
Lee Donley: That's still about three floors above yours!


Nick Butler: [to Lee] You and your 14 karat oomph!


Side Note:
Dubbed the “Oomph Girl” in the 1940’s by Warner Brothers for her earthy sex appeal, this was a moniker that Ann Sheridan openly disdained but eventually learned to accept.

Cagney: Because the story line of Torrid Zone was so terribly predictable, I thought that just to effect some kind of change, I'd grow a mustache. It was really a rather silly-looking thing, but at least it was inoffensive. Inoffensive, that is, to everyone except the top brass. They gave the producer of the picture, Mark hellinger, some emphatic hell about my little peccadillo. mark, a happy-go-lucky guy with a flair for high living, came to me about it.
"Jim," he said, "the boys in the front office want to know why you grew the mustache."
"What's the matter with it?" I said.
"The brass claims it takes away some of your toughness."
"They know all about that, don't they Mark? Hell, what do we want to do? Sell the public the same piece of yard-goods all the time? Let's have some variety." -Cagney by Cagney



Tonight on TCM!
Little Big Shot (1935) Small-time hoods turn nursemaid when a gangster's daughter is orphaned. Cast: Sybil Jason, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Edward Everett Horton Dir: Michael Curtiz

White Heat (1949)

Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is a ruthless killer and criminal mastermind. He’s also a serious mama’s boy. After unknowingly leaving clues linking him to a deadly railroad heist, Jarrett becomes the target of the feds. When they close in on Jarrett, he secretly flies to Illinois and turns himself in on trumped- up lesser charges as an alibi to the former crime. However, the feds are on to him and they send secret agent Hank Fallon to prison to be Jarrett’s cell mate. Under the name of Vic Pardo, Fallon befriends Jarrett by helping him with his psychotic breaks (in the form of headaches) and saving his life from another inmate who tries to kill him under the orders of Big Ed (Steve Cochran), one of Jarrett’s traitorous gang members.
Receiving a warning from his mother, Ma Jarrett ( Margaret Wycherly) that Big Ed and his wife Verna (Virginia Mayo) are double-crossing him, Jarrett pleads with his mother to stay out of the situation but she is determined to get rid of Big Ed so he doesn’t harm Jarrett. Desperate to break out of prison Jarrett turns to Fallon who sees this as his opportunity to infiltrate the Jarrett gang. Unfortunately, when things are all set for the break out, Jarrett learns of his mother’s death and in a well played out scene, he goes berserk, landing himself in the psych ward. All of Fallon and the feds best laid plans are now at loose ends and Fallon finds himself in deeper danger when Jarrett manages to break him and three other inmates out of prison. When Jarrett regroups his gang to mastermind a "Trojan horse" armored-car robbery, Fallon must depend upon his wits and cunning to both foil the gang and send a warning to the feds.

This film was James Cagney's first gangster film since the 1939 Roaring Twenties which was also directed by Raoul Walsh and though Cagney was proud of his performance in the film, he tended to dismiss White Heat as a cheap melodrama. Perhaps it was but the critics loved it and so did I. Though it was sad to see Cagney getting on in years (having first seen him play a gangster in 1931's The Public Enemy), he was no less powerful or compelling as Cody Jarrett. Unafraid to display any emotion, Cagney aptly portrayed a man haunted by his own madness. His vast experience playing a gangster combined with his ability to create a better scene (when the cafeteria scene where Jarrett learns of his mother's death wasn't working- Cagney caught everyone on screen by surprise as well as Walsh who did not know what Cagney had planned) makes him stand out among his peers. As does the unmistakable fast-paced rhythmic flow of his voice and his ability to contort his face into a mask of pure evil.
Before I decided to devote myself to some serious classic film watching, I was not a fan of Cagney. I found him odious and unlikeable not realizing that though he wasn't content to play the bad man, when he did, he did it well. Having seen him play both sinner and saint, I have come to recognize a talent that is original and refreshing as well as genius and haunting. In short, I have become a fan of one James Cagney.

Side note:
Cody Jarrett's shout on top of the oil tank in the film's climax, "Made it Ma, top of the world!" has entered the popular lexicon having been parodied on film, referenced in music, and even paraphrased on The Simpsons.


Tonight on TCM:
Meet John Doe (1941) A reporter's fraudulent story turns a tramp into a national hero and makes him a pawn of big business. Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan Dir: Frank Capra

Thanks to Dr. Macro for the images!

The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

Peter Frye (Dean Stockwell) has problems. Besides being disillusioned about his parents still being alive and being passed from one relative to another, he now has to deal with an issue that isn’t so easy to hide-- green hair.
The movie opens with a completely shaven Peter refusing to speak to the authorities about where he has run away from. The police call in a Dr. Evans (Robert Ryan), a child psychologist whom Peter tells his story to. Peter recently moved in with an understanding retired actor named Gramps (Pat O'Brien). He starts attending a new school and living the life of a normal boy until his class gets involved with trying to help war orphans in Europe and Asia. Through this aid Peter realizes via another classmate, that he too is a war orphan. The realization about his parents, his work with the war orphans and constant chatter from adults about another possible war leave Peter troubled. To make matters worse, he awakens the next day with green hair, prompting him to run away after being taunted by the townspeople and his peers. While crying in the woods he is approached by the orphaned children whose pictures he saw on posters. They tell him that he has green hair for a good cause, that he can use it to make a difference and get a message out to the people that war is dangerous for children. Peter leaves with a new sense of determination and starts to deliver his message but the townspeople are not buying it and even Gramps encourages him to shave his head so that his hair might grow back normally. Peter eventually agrees but after the deed is done he runs away. After Peter tells his story to Dr. Evans he asks the doctor if he believes his story. Dr. Evans tells him he does not because Peter doesn’t even believe his own story. He advises him that if he is going to deliver an important message, he must believe in it and not give up so easily when he comes up against obstacles. Peter returns home determined that his hair will grow back green and that he will believe in the message he needs to deliver.

Pictures courtesy of LIFE magazine

I don’t know what prompted me to rent this film despite the fantastical aspect of a boy with green hair. Nothing in the description of the film gave me a clue that it was an anti-war parable. Though I admire director Joseph Losey’s approach to a plea for tolerance, like most people and maybe even more so for a generation entering the Cold War years, I could see the futility of trying to change the world by making individual stand out and deliver a message of peace. Sadly for Losey, he learned that as well, becoming one of the blacklisted directors of Hollywood in 1951 for his Leftist leanings, he was forced to flee to Europe. Though Losey resented his alienation from his country, he acknowledged its positive aspects. Rather than end up a jaded Hollywood director, he was an outsider just like Peter, a position that was to inspire, as well as frustrate, his work.

Tonight on TCM! (I Can't Wait!!)
Lured (1947) A woman helps the police catch the serial killer who murdered her best friend.Cast: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, Boris Karloff Dir: Douglas Sirk