Stars: James Cagney, Mae Clarke and James Burke
Director: John G. Blystone
Writers: James Edward Grant (story), Henry McCarty (screenplay)
An ex-boxer accepts an appointment to serve as head of the Bureau of Weights and Measures. However, when he discovers that his organization is full of corruption and lies, he sets out to uncover the scam, much to the dismay of his girlfriend!
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Does anyone know where I can find Cagney in 'Johnny come lately'?
14:42
Classic James Cagney Legend
UNDERSTATED BUT OK
Outstanding!
Cagney does a terrible job of impersonating Matthew McConaughey. "Alright, alright, alright."
Gotta love Cagney
That was fun! I thought at the end when his girl (spoiler alert – don't read) asked how he paid for the ring, he was gonna say with the $5,000 check made out to cash from her former boss for the crook. Heeheeheee!
Everything old is relevant some, to paraphrase an old saw. As a premise for a film today it'd be laughable; but If real life brought news of a hard-hitting Inspector of Weights & Measures we'd applaud the novelty alone and, some of us, the righteousness. It's too near a century since this story, and America is not only betrayed ideologically and strategically, but its very properties and possessions, and the vote itself, have been stolen and sold by corrupt officeholders and corrupts not even endowed by any public. What are uranium and the deactivated parcels of the post office; what are "superdelegates" and same-day-registration-no-ID voting, but the fraudulent pricing and short measures battled byCagney in this tale from an era that;s knocked for not being "kind or gentle"—but sure as hell was HONEST?
We live today under (yes, i said "under" and i meant it) (s)elected gangsters who answer any perception of plain, gross fraud not even with defense, but with condescending arrogance impugning the motives and morals not even of questioners, but any who would question.
In a modern remake of this film, Cagney would be the bad guy. On catching the guy selling the quart-short gallon of gas, he'd be PILLORIED by his BOSS, of course a disabled, overweight, "racial minority" transgender lesbian, as a tool of—well, you name it. He'd be berated as a big-footprint global-warmer. Did i forget—how could i forget—racist? I didn't and i couldn't. It'd be the fraudster himself who'd charge Cagney with the Big R and get him run outta town & into oblivion or prison, racist racist racist that he'd be.
In this minor work of still-adolescent cinema there's a strong subtext and room in the structure to place, or remove, the girders of the basis of civic capitalism: HONESTY. Basic storytelling shows us what the world was, and by implication that we've lost society itself in the trading of what the world was for what it is.
The first of two features Cagney did for Edward Alperson's "Grand National Pictures" while "at liberty" from Warner Bros.