Siempre un caballero

This offbeat drama from United Artists and director William K. Howard has elderly Vinnie McLeod (Grace George) running a struggling newspaper in a small town circa 1906. She has a soft spot for the vagrants who pass through, often feeding them and cleaning them up. Currently she's locked in journalistic battle with local big shot W. M. Dougherty (Edward McNamara), a crook with his fingerprints all over various town scandals. McLeod gains an unlikely ally when another passing bum, Tom Richards (James Cagney), turns out to be a talented reporter. She hires him onto the paper, and Tom sets out to bring down Dougherty once and for all. Also featuring Marjorie Main, Marjorie Lord, Hattie McDaniel, William Henry, Margaret Hamilton, Robert Barrat, George Cleveland, Lucien Littlefield, Clarence Muse, Joseph Crehan, and Arthur Hunnicutt.

This was the first film produced by Cagney and his brother William Cagney for their independent company. It's an unusual mix of nostalgic smalltown whimsy and hard-hitting corruption expose, with bursts of surprising violence. 64-year-old Grace George, who gets an extended "Introducing" credit at the film's start, was a major theater star who had actually appeared in a silent film decades earlier. This would prove to be her only other screen credit. I enjoyed Marjorie Main as the scandalous operator of the local gambling establishment (it's implied that it's a brothel, but this being the production code years...), and Arthur Hunnicutt in an early role as one of the passing hobos. The movie earned an Oscar nomination for Best Score (Leigh Harline).

Grace George is hocking the silver candlesticks to keep her paper running. It's thirty years, and the local machine boss, Edward McNamara, has laid down the law: stop publishing those less-than-admiring editorials, print these puff pieces over her signature, and he won't have her mortgage called in. At court that morning, she watches as Jimmy Cagney is hauled in for vagrancy, pleads Not Guilty, and takes him on as a reporter. He announces that the paper is going to continue to go after McNamara, and here's how.

What I enjoyed about this movie was the wealth of supporting eccentrics. Oh, some of them are clearly intended to be remembered purely for those eccentricities. It's a writer's trick: the guy with the mouse; the guy who sings ballads; the guy who puts ketchup on everything; the guy who's a tramp who recites poetry; the tramp who talks about the hot cakes. They're there, they're briefly memorable because they do something other people don't. Maybe they'll figure in the story, maybe they won't. However, the reviewer will notice them and admire the performance.

Yet for that brief moment, each stands at the center of the film, and Cagney stands aside and watches them, amused and pleased. For that brief moment, this film celebrates each of them. Released in 1943, it looks like an odd and eccentric piece for an audience in the middle of the greatest war of the 20th Century. It isn't. It's Why We Fight: so a guy can put ketchup on everything, even in his coffee. Yuck.

One of the occasional independent efforts that the legendary Jimmy Cagney made away from the Warner Bros. studios,JOHNNY COME LATELY is a rather slow,stately melodrama of small-town political corruption near the beginning of the 20th century which is saved by a cast of familiar Hollywood character actors and some enjoyable scenes.Cagney is watchable as always,but kudos here mainly go to Grace George,a veteran stage actress whose only sound film this was.(She appeared in one silent film in the 1910's) Miss George's dignified and distinguished presence is the best aspect the film has going for it;it is a shame she never made another as she would've been a respectable and welcome addition to any film before or afterwards.

Leigh Harline's incessant,cloying musical score is a frequent and irritating distraction,but producer William Cagney(Jimmy's brother) has filled the picture with some popular and well-liked character players such as Margaret Hamilton,Hattie McDaniel,Lucien Littlefield,George Cleveland,Irving Bacon and Arthur Hunnicutt in some good cameos.The inimitable Marjorie Main comes off best as an ageing night-club hostess.Aside from some occasional familiar tough guy frissions(such as a chair being hurled,and a fist fight and shootout),Cagney is oddly subdued as a journalist turned hobo,and his character is essentially decent and honourable.His scenes with Miss George are quietly observational and low-key,but all the better for it and often rather touching.

It may have been somewhat better with big studio backing,but the production values are adequate,though William K. Howard's direction could have been pacier.The best scenes are towards the end when the townspeople stage an uprising against the corrupt politician Dougherty (Edward MacNamara),but his change of mind shortly afterwards doesn't really ring true.Cagney apparently considered his film one of his favourites.It isn't particularly one of his best,compared to such classics as THE PUBLIC ENEMY,YANKEE DOODLE DANDY and WHITE HEAT,but it's still worth a look.

RATING:Six and a half out of Ten

Freed at last from his contract with Warners and with an Oscar in his back pocket from 'Yankee Doodle Dandy', James Cagney enjoys himself playing a romantic drifter in this independent production produced by his brother William. (Director William K. Howard had enjoyed a considerable reputation in the thirties but by the forties was fighting a losing battle with the bottle so the two Cagney boys probably had quite a bit of input behind the scenes.)

The general feyness of the piece is tempered by Cagney's obvious enjoyment at being permitted to show more sensitivity than he was accustomed to. (Among the supporting cast, as a sassy madam introduced in bare shoulders and answering to the name of Gashouse Mary Marjorie Main also extends her range displaying a retro glamour that gives Mae West a run for her money; admiring herself in a mirror and observing "I haven't been spoken to like that in thirty years!")

This is a film that all not a classic certainly deserves to be better known than it is. I had certainly never heard of the film when I found it on very late at night on the BBC the other day (we really do take for granted the treats the BBC sometimes serve up late at night) but was pleasantly surprised by what I found here. A James Cagney film where as usual he dominates every scene he is in but here it is a bit more under stated than normal. Here Cagney plays Tom Richards a vagrant who stumbles across a small town that is being crippled by corruption. Richards finds a friend in the proprietor of the local paper and few moral people left in town Miss Grace George. Slowly Richards back story is hinted at, which brings depth and meaning to his character. Cagney is so good here you wish to see another film showing how his character got to the point where we are introduced to him in the movie. As Cagney powers through the movie we see him work his magic on the towns folk all leading to an inevitable yet subtle and enjoyable ending. Whilst I would not look to purchase this movie. I would certainly watch it again the next time I find it on television.