The Time of Your Life

The plot of this film progresses very slowly especially by modern standards but the linear storyline is not really the reason to watch it. The cast brings to life a nice collection of unique personalities whose interactions are a joy to behold. Cagney is cast against type (he's not in trademark tough guy mode; he even hates to stand!). Fans of his are in for a treat and like I said the entire cast distinguishes itself. All in all a very worthwhile viewing, 8/10.

It was an interesting idea to film this William Saroyan play, which does not seem to lend itself particularly well to a screen adaptation. It turned out well enough, and in particular most of the characters are brought to life believably and effectively. James Cagney stars in what is quite an atypical role for him, and he is backed up by a good cast of character actors.

The story has Cagney as Joe, a regular at Nick's saloon who watches everyone come and go. Rather than a main story line, there are instead a number of things happening in the lives of the characters - some are important and some trivial, but all of them matter to the characters themselves. To make it work as a movie, it is essential that the cast makes the characters realistic and worth caring about, and in that regard they succeed pretty well.

William Bendix is very enjoyable as Nick, and the cast also includes Jimmy Lydon, Cagney's sister Jeanne, and Tom Powers, who is pretty effective as a menacing bully. Even most of the minor characters get some good moments of their own.

This is the kind of movie that can be pretty enjoyable if you are in the right mood for it, but that won't seem like much if you aren't. Most of it relies on simple conversation and interaction among the characters, and it has a decidedly offbeat feel to it, but if/when that's what you're in the mood for, then this works rather well.

I have now seen every movie James Cagney has made. For some reason, until recently this film hasn't been on television for years. While Maltin found this film disappointing, I really enjoyed it. It is a cozy sort of movie with about 98% of the film taking place in a barroom. Cagney is terrific as the man who sits at the table observing life as it passes him by. Everyone who comes in talks to him. Cagney's real life sister Jeanne, gives a fine performance as the daydreaming girl from Chicago. William Bendix has to be one of the greatest character actors of all time. His performance as Nick, the owner of the bar, glues the film together. This movie was well worth the wait.

In 1941 Richard Rogers and Lawrence (Larry) Hart did the score of a brilliant musical called PAL JOEY. One highlight was a striptease dance and song done by Elaine Stritch towards the end of the second act, where she is a reporter talking about interviewing Gypsy Rose Lee. Gypsy (if you recall the movie with Natalie Wood) was always self-taught, and well read. The song spoofed this having her show off her knowledge (it begins with her mentioning reading Schopenhauer, not the easiest thing in the world). One couplet is the following:

"Zip, Walter Lippman wasn't brilliant today." "Zip, will Saroyan ever write a great play?"

It is a little ironic that this barb was directed to William Saroyan, as the star of PAL JOEY was Gene Kelly, who played "Harry, a natural born hoofer" in Saroyan's one and only Broadway success, THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. Why the barb? Well William Saroyan was a popular short story writer and novelist, especially for books like MY NAME IS ARAM, about the life of the Armenian-American immigrants in California. However, try as he might he never wrote a monumental dramatic masterpiece. THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE is not in the same level of dramaturgy as A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, or WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE is a pleasant play, and still gets revived, but it is a lesser work for the stage. Even Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN is considered a greater play.

The problem with THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE is that it shows the interactions of a set of characters in Nick's Bar. As was pointed out in another comment on this board, O'Neill's THE ICEMAN COMETH also is set in a bar. But the denizens of the bar at Harry Hope's flop house hotel are all failures, who drink to forget their failures and reassure themselves that they can pull themselves out of the failure sooner or later (none of them really can). Hickey, who comes to the hotel, tries to convince them they'll be happier giving up their "pipe dreams" if they admit they are not heroic or brave or capable of reform. You see, there is a theme that is uniting that play's characters. Saroyan is not (as was said) O'Neill. He was more optimistic, and he tried to show that the characters were capable of helping each other. At the end they join together to defeat the evil Blick.

Saroyan, like Wilder, was a master of Americana. In one sequence he has two characters get involved in a contest to see how much gum can be chewed at one time. O'Neill (even in a play like AH WILDERNESS, which is a comedy) never could be so Hamish. Saroyan invents very colorful characters, like his old timer "Kit Carson", who claims to be an old Indian fighter. The central figure in the play, Joe (or Joseph T.) is also colorful - he seems to be a former newspaperman who was successful, but began to regret getting involved in the awful world of the news - he has retreated to the bar where he'll hopefully find more gentle people. He is visited at one point by a woman, probably his former fiancé, and acknowledges her, but won't return to the madness he willingly left. The character is interesting, but none of the other characters reflect his point of view.

So we are left with a well acted, entertaining play - turned into a good movie. Cagney is remarkably subdued - look at the scene when he examines the little wind-up toys he has Wayne Morris buy for him. He maintains our interest until the end, but the lively Cagney does not show up until he confronts Blick.

William Bendix does his usual great job, especially when confronting Blick as a potential blackmailing scum. His Nick runs a respectable bar, and the threat Blick is hinting at is that a prostitute may be using the bar (Jeanne Cagney). Bendix knows nothing of this, but is concerned. Oddly enough, although the bar is a nice neighborhood one, Howard Freeman and Natalie Schaefer go to the bar (they are wealthy people) as though they are slumming.

The current film version does not have all the scenes that Cagney originally had shot. Wayne Morris's growing romance with Jeanne Cagney is cut down in the film (which is regrettable). There is also an interesting change in the conclusion (as in Saroyan's play itself) as to what happens to Blick. But the film is a good one, and a worthy addition to Jimmy Cagney's film record.

James Cagney had an affinity for nostalgic type stories and if The Time of Your Life is a contemporary piece for 1939 when it made its Broadway debut, it has a nostalgic feel to it.

No real plot here, just a whole group of character studies about the various habitués of Nick's Place on the San Francisco Embarcadero in the Thirties. The observer here is Joe, a man who just whiles a way the hours observing humankind in the bar with no visible means of support. He must be a retired civil servant on a pension like me. Maybe that's why I like the film so much.

Two members of the original Broadway cast did the film version, Reginald Beane the black piano player and William Bendix as Nick, owner and proprietor of the place. By that time Bendix was a big star with The Life of Riley on radio and he must have cost Cagney a bundle. But Bill Bendix is always worth it.

The villain of the piece is Tom Powers who either played thugs or policemen in film. As Blick, he's a bottom feeding scuzzball who either informs on people or blackmails them depending on how he can make some dirty money. In this case he focuses on a young woman with a shady past played by the star's sister Jeanne Cagney. It's probably her best film role.

Someone else remarked in a review that he thought it was timely that The Time of Your Life came out in 1948 as the McCarthy era was getting underway. True enough, but I believe that author William Saroyan had a specific political target in mind in 1939 in Congressman Martin Dies who headed the House Un-American Activities Committee when it was created in the late Thirties. Dies was that kind of a bullying interrogator that Blick is in the play.

Paul Draper who was the dancer/comedian in the cast was in fact blacklisted shortly after this came out. On Broadway his part was played by Gene Kelly. I guess getting Kelly from MGM would have blown Cagney's whole budget in 1948.

The Time of Your Life has always struck me as kind of an anti-The Iceman Cometh another play set in a tavern. But that one is by Eugene O'Neill and no one ever accused O'Neill of being optimistic. O'Neill's characters in his play are as pessimistic a lot as Saroyan's are optimistic. The two works really ought to be seen back to back.

The tavern as a setting for theater has a tradition that goes from Falstaff to Cheers. The Time of Your Life is an honorable addition to the tradition.