Ennemis publics

It's fun to watch a young James Cagney doing his thing. He plays the cheapskate Weights and Measures guy who takes his job very seriously, stepping on the toes of a group of crooked politicians. He is offered the world, but keeps his integrity. He is beaten and set up, but that's the problem. We never know if he is really in danger. They say he's in a spot, but still seems to have carte blanche to move around and do what he needs to do. At times he's so cocky he doesn't do much to protect himself. His allies are in the police department but just about everything else is pretty corrupt. He perseveres (almost too good to be true), of course, and we pull for him. The problem for me is a lack of sustained suspense. It would have been much better if he had had to clear his name. He never drops into the depths, even when rejected by his wife to be. It's still fun with the bad guys kind of imploding. See it just to watch Cagney do his tough guy posturing.

Just saw this movie for the first time last night and I really enjoyed it. It's not every day you see a film about the Weights and Measures investigator. I got to tell ya, even watching Cagney in this B movie was completely enjoyable. These movies are a lot different when the lead actor shows up to act the walls off the place. He is 100% believable from start to finish and it really ups the value and watch-ability of the film.

My favorite scenes are his Investigation scenes. The film has several twists which are nice and some fun action scenes. Pretty intense fight scene at the end between Cagney and one of the bad guys. The two stuntmen were really duking it out.

What does this movie have in common with The Godfather, the Wild West or even Superman? Well, it comes right down to truth and justice - whether they really are the American Way or whether corruption and violence have gnawed to the core of democratic society and made it rotten. Second only to sex, institutionalized corruption has been just about the biggest issue for Hollywood right through its history. And rightly so as, the battle to resist it is seemingly never finished.

That's a big build up for a small movie. Great Guy is just a simple story about one man who tries to make a difference and who takes a lot of personal risks in doing so. And let's face it, the Bureau of Weights and Measures is hardly the most glamorous place for a story. But James Cagney's character Johnny Cave uses his brains, his fists and a lot of Attitude to try setting things straight and I for one am grateful to him and others like him.

When James Cagney walked out of his contract with Warner Brothers in 1935 it was because of the roles he was getting. He objected to the type casting. So he signs with this B picture studio called Grand National and this is one of the two films he did for that studio.

He could have made the same picture at Warner Brothers. It sure isn't anything original for him. He makes it at Grand National and does his usual Cagney urban tough guy part and doesn't get the benefit of the production values of an A Studio.

It's a B picture and it shows. But it's not a bad film at all. I think that it was butchered in the editing, the picture seems to start in the middle of the story. But what remains is a good fast paced Cagney film (is there any other pace for him?). He gets good support from among others, Joe Sawyer, Edward Brophy and most of all from James Burke who in his role as Cagney's trainee sidekick almost steals the picture from him.

Ironically in 1937 he went back to Warner Brothers and what is the first film Cagney does? Angels With Dirty Faces. No new ground for him there, but he gets his first Oscar nomination. It's like he gave up on typecasting. But he certainly did expand his range and got a lot of good roles, both from Warner Brothers and from other studios.

Early in the movie, Cagney's Johnny Cave character tells his gumshoes in the Office of Weights and Measures that in the previous year, unscrupulous shop owners had cheated the American consumer out of more money than the aggregate National War Debt! Then he goes out and tickets a particularly greasy green grocer for short-selling him a bag of sugar that is four ounces off (oh, the horrors!!) and one skinny chicken that his butcher's scale has rather generously proclaimed to be six lbs., after which the fur--or in this case feathers--flies. Er, fly. When a racketeer in politician's clothing attempts to derail an investigation into the paltry poultry purveyor's practices, our hero becomes a lone wolf waging the war of the weights on behalf of housewives across America. After all, four cents here and a quarter there add up and before we know it we have anarchy! Word of his intransigence soon reaches both the Mayor and the Governor's offices, and Cagney becomes a marked man. If it sounds silly, it's not--the dishonest retailing practices are only a plot tool (or as Hitchcock would say, the McGuffin) and while unfamiliar, it works every bit as well here as any Treasury Agent or G-man anthology in which the fight is taken to shady crooks who are operating outside the interests of the country's common good. The production standards are decidedly Grade-B, but it is Cagney who makes this movie the delight that it is: this was his first film away from Warner Brothers after seeking release in court from his unreasonable contract, and he seems to be at ease and enjoying himself tremendously--the performance turned in here is intelligent and crackles with his unique energy and surefire charisma. Mae Clarke's presence lends a definite Warner's feel to the overall production. The supporting players turn in solid performances and the story moves along smartly after a rocky introduction that seems to begin three or four reels into the story--but sit back and enjoy it for the Cagney showcase and engaging Depression-era time capsule that it is.