Le fauve en liberté

Had a chance to watch KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE and although I don't agree with the claims of some that if you must see one "crime" film, this is it, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and that James Cagney was again terrific and on top of his game for this one. I also didn't get the feeling that this film was, in reality, WHITE HEAT 2, as some have said but it was a nifty follow up to that classic JC film. Cagney was indeed brutal and off his rocker, but it was more controlled and offset with his characters smarts and sense of humor. In WHITE HEAT, JC was just downright nuts, out of control and a lot more frightening IMHO. In KTG, Cags plays Ralph Cotter who after a daring and violent daylight prison break, uses his smarts to prove that he is no small timer and formulates a grand scheme to garner lots of cash and protection which involves crooked lawyers and crooked policemen. Cotter, in the end, is his own downfall as he goes too far and his romance with a high society girl with a very wealthy and powerful father, leads to his downfall because one thing you don't do is double-cross your moll! Excellent performance by all, including Barbara Payton and a near film stealing performance by Luther Adler as JC's eccentric and very crooked lawyer. Direction is robust and swiftly paced by Gordon Douglas and in the end, makes this film fun, breezy, yet violent, but also a very good watch.

Gangster Cotter escapes prison and schemes his way into city underworld, leaving trail of broken bodies and broken hearts behind.

Cagney's pushing 50, but you'd never know it from the energy level. Ever the human dynamo, he's dishing it out to both the competition and the dames. True, it's a stretch when old man Dobson calls Cotter (Cagney) "young man", but you hardly notice. This is the legend's final gangster film. It may not be the best, still it is fast, tough, and unsentimental.

Once again, Cagney's the outlaw entrepreneur working his way up the money ladder with little more than guts, wits, and a .45 (automatic, please). Along the way, he corrals two crooked cops, a shady lawyer, a double-crossing garageman, and notorious Hollywood bad girl Barbara Payton. Looks like everybody's got an angle of some kind, just the types Cotter can subordinate to his relentless drive. The ending is really ironic when you think about it. This is a stone-cold movie. Hardly anyone's likable, least of all Cotter. His cocksure ambition fascinates even as it repels. Only a secure-in-his-skin actor like Cagney would risk a role as unsympathetic as this.

I wish IMDb had more on screenwriter Harry Brown (not Harry Joe Brown of the Ranown cycle of Westerns). This Harry Brown did a number of high quality screenplays (A Place in the Sun; Ocean's Eleven et al.), including the one here. Director Douglas manages several nice touches, such as the true believer at the phony psychic session. Note, however, that the quarry killings are not shown, at least in the version I've seen. In fact, showing that may have pushed the producers over the censorship line.

All in all, it's a worthy slice of thick ear for gangster Cagney to go out on, especially that last scene with it's great title line.

I can't believe that this film is not well known. Get rid of the terrible courtroom framing device, and you have a gangster masterpiece. Coming on the heels of Cagney's better known White Heat, this film takes violence and corruption to a new level. This film starts off with a brutal jail break and never slows down. The cold blooded violence portrayed is quite jaw dropping. Cagney was born to play this role. He is clearly relishing his cold blooded character. The freshness of this film is surprising. You are totally caught off guard. In this sense, it reminds me most of Kiss Me Deadly. For anyone with a passing interest in Cagney, or gangster films, or film-noir, or film violence, watch this film!!!!!!!

James Cagney shines, and at times even seems to glow in the dark in this rugged follow-up to White Heat, directed with great verve by Gordon Douglas. It's a somewhat neglected film, maybe because it's basically a gangster picture rather than a noir, and rather late in the day for such things. The supporting cast features Barbara Payton; Luther Adler, in a Howard Da Silva role, as an eccentric lawyer, and who almost steals the show from Cagney; Rhys Williams, effortlessly playing an American; William Frawley, for nostalgia; and Ward Bond, neanderthal as ever, as a dogged, corrupt plainclothesman. Good, fast-paced and at times surprisingly violent, this movie will not put you to sleep.

Spoilers here.

If they made this movie today, they would call it "White Heat 2: Cody Lives". Cagney is as ruthless as in White Heat, but here, his pathology is under control, (brain surgery after his Oil Tank "accident" in Part 1?) so he can blackmail cops and smoothly double-cross his erstwhile moll while skimming wherever else and whenever he can. In the first couple of minutes of the film, he shoots a fellow prison escapee "just because". His sense of loyalty to his supposed accomplices goes downhill from there.

Barbara Payton is a more resonant and convincing actress than Virginia Mayo, and it can be argued that her strength as an actress creates much of the tension here: We want to see her get wise to the Cagney character's dirty game, and also succeed in avenging her brother's death (the fellow escapee shot in the beginning of the film). And unlike the case of Virginia Mayo's unsympathetic moll in White Heat, we actually do root for her to gain a comeuppance against the Cagney character. But we're torn. Cagney has so much natural charisma, even when playing a snake, that we can never entirely want him to get his. There is a sense of justice and inevitability to the ending. But there remains the nagging hurt feeling at what Cagney-- with all that bristling energy and industry and charisma-- COULD have accomplished if he hadn't succumbed to the dark side. Ten stars. See it!