Winner Take All

Winner Take All (1932)

*** (out of 4)

A hotshot New York prizefighter (James Cagney) leaves the city for the country so he can get some rest. While in the country he falls for a sweet single mother (Marian Nixon) but once he's back in the city he falls for a rich girl (Virginia Bruce) just using him. A subplot dealing with Cagney getting plastic surgery is rather weird as we get a different looking Cagney as well as one sounding a lot different. That aside, the story is actually pretty good and the moments at the start with Cagney and Nixon are very warm and touching. The film offers a lot of nice laughs and the boxing scenes are really, really good. There's one fight that has an ending, which appears to have been lifted in Rocky 2.

Pretty new to the hollywood scene, James Cagney is Jimmy Kane, pro boxer, on a break at health ranch. He meets up with singer Peggy (Marion Nixon), who really needs money for her ill son. co-stars Virginia Bruce and Guy Kibbee, who were in so many films in the 1930s and 1940s. the usual boy-meets-girl story, and just before the film code was too strong. Kibbee is his manager "Pop", but when he lines up a big time fight, Kane isn't sure he wants to do it, because it might ruin his body even more. a really funny scene when Kane and his helper are practicing meeting various people in new york city. gotta pay attention, or you'll miss it. but now the girlfriend is running cold... she and her best friend are total idiots, and Kane is better off without them! but that's just me. watch the adventure unfold. Directed by Roy DelRuth; he didn't win any oscars, but he got his star on the the hollywood walk of fame, and made some biggies in the 1940s !

Winner Take All is a typical example of the roles James Cagney was so trying to get away from in those early years at Warner Brothers. In this programmer he's a lightweight prizefighter whose fans have to take up a collection in Madison Square Garden to send him away for a rest cure. Seems that Cagney liked the night life just a little too much and its put his health at risk.

While in New Mexico he meets and falls for good girl Marian Nixon and her son Dickie Moore. She's there with Moore for his health problems. An out of condition Cagney takes a local fight there to help pay for their expenses on a winner take all basis and barely survives the bout.

Then when he gets back to New York he starts hanging around with bad society girl Virginia Bruce and her crowd. She makes a chump out of street smart Jimmy.

I don't think I have to say too much more. Guy Kibbee as Cagney's manager and Clarence Muse as his corner man fill their roles very well.

The only two things that Winner Take All became noted for was that this was the first time Cagney did a boxing film. He got into the ring later on in The Irish in Us and City for Conquest. But also footage from this film was used in that last Cagney made for TV film Terrible Joe Moran.

That film was a mistake whereas this one is strictly routine.

Winner Take All is an early Cagney punch and rudie, in which he plays Jimmy Kane, a fighter with an ambiguous relationship to the ring. Although a top contender, he's taking off for a rest to a dude spa out west. He says his goodbyes at the Garden and even allows the fight fans to throw money into the ring to speed him on his way. A pre-Gabby George Hayes welcomes him to the Rancho. He meets s single mother with a small child, the always terrific Dickie Moore. Cagney is sporting a bulbous nose and puffy ears and talks through lower eastside mush, but he's always the man. Soon he's back in the ring in a grueling bout in Mexico to raise money for his new sweetheart. The character of Kane is interesting because he seems to have no ties to anyone and is a loner of an extreme even Cagney didn't play much. Cagney, of course excels. There is a nifty little scene with Ralfe Harold who sells hot jewelry, and Virginia Bruce, who should have been a much bigger star, scorches the furniture in every scene she's in. I'll take V.B. any day over most of the other '30s fire-eaters . This picture was new to me and deserves a place in the pantheon of Warner Bros. fast and snappys, if only for the scene where Cagney delays Bruce's ship sailing.

If it wasn't for the presence of cocky James Cagney, I'd probably say skip this one. It has a very mediocre plot line involving pride coming before a fall, with Cagney playing the boxer whose story is the object lesson. Cagney plays Jimmy Kane, a boxer who has a heart condition who, for some reason, needs a rest cure out West in the desert for a few months. His trainer is played by Guy Kibbee, who says things that lead you to believe that Kane loved the nightlife and that he is glad he is going somewhere that there isn't any.

But that doesn't mean Kane doesn't find a woman out at the rest cure ranch where he is staying. He runs into widow Peggy Harmon (Marian Nixon) who is at the ranch for her little son's sake (Dickie Moore) and they hit it off. When she can't raise the money to stay the extra three months that her son needs, Kane risks his health for a 2000 dollar fight to help her out. He winds up with a messed up nose and a cauliflower ear as a result.

Kane gets the medical OK to leave before Peggy can, and he pledges fidelity to her. The newly healthy Kane rises to the top of his profession again. And then he meets a society gal - Joan (Virginia Bruce). Joan is fascinated by Kane, but not sexually attracted to him and is also extremely embarrassed by his ignorance whenever they are out with "her set". The thing is, Kane doesn't see this and thinks Joan is as gaga over him like he is over the moon for her. His postcards to Peggy get increasingly infrequent and terse. Complications ensue.

This one does have a few things to recommend it. For one, this is one of Virginia Bruce's earliest credited roles and she does a a good job of playing a bad girl. And she isn't obvious either. You never know EXACTLY where she is taking this thing with Cagney's character. There is also a rather odd conversation when Joan's set is discussing Russia and "the great social experiment going on" over there and "the five year plan".

This film doesn't give the normally colorful and hilarious Guy Kibbee much to do, and that was a bit of a disappointment as was the bland part Marian Nixon got stuck with as Peggy. But, hey, how often do you get to see a plastic surgery angle dragged into a precode boxing film where it is the man trying to pretty up for the woman? Mildly recommended, and mainly for Cagney who never disappoints.