Im Taumel der Weltstadt

James Cagney, Arthur Kennedy and Ann Sheridan all live in the "City for Conquest" - New York, that is - in this 1940 film directed by Anatole Litvak and also starring Frank McHugh, Donald Crisp, Anthony Quinn and - yes, Elia Kazan.

Cagney and Kennedy are the Kenny Brothers, Danny and Eddie. Danny is a truck driver in love with Peg, his childhood sweetheart. He has two dreams - Peg and his brother's composing career. When he's discovered by a fight manager (Crisp), Danny becomes a fighter for the money.

The ambitious Peg has her eyes on fame and fortune and pairs up with a brutish but equally ambitious dancer, played with force by Anthony Quinn. Eddie, meanwhile, is discovered not for his magnificent composition "City for Conquest" but for his Broadway musical capabilities.

When he realizes he's losing Peg, Danny, who is being brought up gradually into the bigger fights, demands to go for a big purse that will give him the championship - and, he thinks, Peg.

Thanks to a crooked mobster, the fight nearly destroys Danny and he has to give up fighting. Down but not out, he insists that Eddie still pursue his dream of a classical career.

This is a good movie that tugs at the heartstrings, very melodramatic, with excellent acting all around. Cagney is wonderful and sympathetic as a simple, loving man who takes what life gives him; Crisp gives a fine performance as his caring fight manager.

Ann Sheridan, always an earthier, tougher version of Rita Hayworth, is marvelous as a young woman who, though she loves Danny, can't fight the lure of the glamor and fame offered by her dance partnership.

Kazan, in a small role as a gangster, is great, though his contributions as a director are far more valuable than what he might have given film history as an actor.

The standout for me was one of the most brilliant and underrated actors of our time, Arthur Kennedy. Kennedy enjoyed a wonderful career in film and on stage in a variety of roles, but because he wasn't a true leading man and not a Warners "tough guy" like Cagney, Robinson, or Bogart who could graduate into lead roles, he toiled as a supporting actor, earning no less than 5 Oscar nominations.

Here he is young and good-looking, and his performance is passionate without being maudlin. Surely there wasn't a dry eye in any movie house after the speech he gives about his brother the night his symphony (very much modeled on "Rhapsody in Blue") debuts. Truly a great treasure, and he was discovered by James Cagney, who knew talent when he saw it.

A heartfelt movie, and you'll need that box of tissues nearby. See it and celebrate the good old days of the rough streets of New York and movies about the common man and dreams coming true.

City for Conquest (1940)

*** (out of 4)

James Cagney's brilliant performance is the highlight of this film about a boxer (Cagney) who risks it all for the love of his girl (Ann Sheridan) and his brother (Arthur Kennedy). It's rather amazing at how great Cagney can be in so many different type of roles. Yes, he mainly played wise guys but whenever he broke this mode he just shows what a great actor he was and that's certainly true with his performance here, which has to rank as one of the greatest of his career. The transformations his character goes through is certainly a juicy role for an actor and Cagney nails all of the different moods without any problems. When the boxer starts to lose his site is when Cagney really shines and his performance here is brilliantly done. I'm not sure what they did to Cagney's eyes but whatever they did looked terrific. I didn't care too much for Sheridan as I thought she brought the film down and a better actress would have suited the film better. The supporting cast is excellent and features nice performances by Kennedy, Frank Craven, Donald Crisp, Frank McHugh and George Tobias. Anthony Quinn is terrific in his role as Cagney's rival and future director Elia Kazan also shocked me with how great he was. The big boxing scene was brilliantly filmed and looked extremely well bringing in all sorts of intense action. The ending is pretty hokey but otherwise this is a highly impressive little film.

I had the very great pleasure this Thanksgiving week of seeing one of my sentimental favorites from the good old Late Show days (nights), City for Conquest. I had not seen it in more years than I should like to remember, but, as I watched, it all came back to me. James Cagney, who has always been a great favorite of mine, plays Danny Kenney (they always seemed to give James Cagney's characters names like "Danny" or "Tommy"), who takes up boxing to finance his younger brother's music career. Sizzling Ann Sheridan is Danny's girlfriend, who has ambitions of her own in the wider world. And indeed Ann Sheridan was a wonderful dancer, and her numbers with Anthony Quinn are erotic in only the way a great dance team can be. Anthony Quinn (man, he was HOT! He looked a lot like Rudolph Valentino) plays a slime ball who fills Peggy's ears with what she wants to hear. They can be a sensational dance team as "Maurice and Margalo" and conquer the world. Of course, she winds up breaking Danny's heart and Danny winds up blind. Soap opera stuff, to be sure, but it WORKS! I believe I once read that Warner Brothers hired a professional boxer to coach James Cagney in this role. Not that he needed much coaching, considering his Hell's Kitchen background. The coach was impressed with Cagney and asked him where he got those moves. "I'm a hoofer," Cagney replied. In any case, if you can avoid bawling your eyes out at the end of City for Conquest," you are stronger than I am! A must-see!

The story begins in the tenements of New York, with two brothers, one an aspiring musician and the other a fighter, who already has a yen for a pretty young neighbor who is an aspiring dancer. Cut to some years later, and the boxer is James Cagney, the musician's Arthur Kennedy, and the young neighbor is Ann Sheridan. All three of them are on the way to making it in their chosen careers, but in doing so, Sheridan's character falls in love with a sleazy ballroom dancer (Anthony Quinn). Cagney makes it big in boxing in order to help fund his brother's music career, before tragedy brings the three back together.

Cagney is Cagney as ever, but Sheridan seems a little too genteel as his tenement-bred girl - although that's partly the point - and I kept wondering why they didn't pick a dancer for the part. Whenever they need a dance number, they either shoot it from the waist down or cut to a long shot. It's too bad WB didn't have Rita Hayworth under contract - she would have been ideal, and a much better fit than the role she was doing over at Columbia at that time, in Ben Hecht's Angels Over Broadway (1940). Arthur Kennedy as the musical brother doesn't make a huge impression, but it's interesting to see Elia Kazan in a small role.

It has great camerawork with a great sense of the late 30s. I didn't realize until afterwards that the great James Wong Howe had a hand in this, but it figures. It's one of those films that feels like it fell a little short of its lofty ambitions, but it's so handsome that I hardly cared.

With a first-rate cast, good boxing sequences, an excellent music score by Max Steiner, a smattering of romance and action sequences, this film has got to be one of James Cagney's best films. Besides, you get a chance to see Arthur Kennedy and Elia Kazan in their first film, and both are excellent. If Kazan weren't such a great director, he easily could have made a career as an actor. Be sure to notice the surprising scene where Anthony Quinn seems to force himself on Ann Sheridan, who pleads for him to stop as the scene fades. Surprising, because even an implied rape was against the strict code in 1940. I wonder how that scene got past the Hays Office.