Degradação Humana

I am not surprised to find only two previous comments about this very good film. Sadly,I have not seen it it many years, as it seems to have disappeared. My most vivid memory is about two particular scenes. The first is between Cagney and his boss (Raymond Massey). When Massey virtually orders Cagney to sober is young nephew up, Cagney replies "can't be done" . When the boss inquires why ? he is told that the drunk must first hear the sound of "angel feathers" . The feathers he relates, is the fear of death. The other scene is the one in which Cagney meets the young nephew who's name is Boyd (played by Gig Young). While completely drunk and laying down on a bed (couch ?) in Cagney's apartment, the two men engage in some banter, whereby Cagney keeps referring to his guest as Boydeee. The nephew having enough of Cagney's mispronunciation, informs him that if he calls him Boydee one more time, he will knock his block off! Cagney then informs him, that he is drunk and that he will knock nobody's block off. This last line is delivered with a smile and style that only the great Cagney was capable of. Upon hearing Cagney's reply, the nephew agrees with a smile of his own and then doses off to sleep. While watching the oncoming sleep, Cagney's expression changes from a smile to a face of concern and something else. The something else may be anger,disgust and or fear. But whatever it is, it in itself sets the tone for the rest of the film. And that look which once again, only Cagney could deliver, tells the audience that someone is in for a great deal of trouble, and part of the trouble is that Cagney doesn't know who is in for the worst of it.

I'm talking about Raymond Massey as newspaper owner John Ives in my title, but I'll get to that later.

James Cagney plays Lew Marsh, a hard hitting newspaper man who just can't stay away from the bottle. The last straw is when he comes back from a bender and starts to write a story that is five days old. His long suffering editor finally cans him. He is obviously well liked at the paper, and he even has a best girl - Paula (Phyllis Thaxter), who also works in the newsroom.

After he is fired, Lew tells Paula to forget about him, to go find a young healthy guy. Time passes and we see Lew staggering down the street looking haggard and dirty. He falls in front of a passing truck, but is barely missed being hit. An ex alcoholic, Charlie (James Gleason), sees all of this. Lew is taken to the hospital and tied down to a bed until he is past the DTs. He swears off drinking because he claims he heard "angel feathers". Drunks may be running from life, but they are running from death even more, and this brush with death is what did it for Lew. Charlie, an ex drunk himself, meets him as he comes out of the hospital, gives him a home and a job doing construction. A big test of soberness is when Lew sees news of Paula's marriage to the nephew of the owner of the paper he was fired from. He passes that test - barely.

Then comes news he is wanted back on the newspaper. The owner himself, John Ives (Raymond Massey, believes Lew has changed and gives him a second chance. Years pass - six of them to be exact - and then one day John Ives calls Lew to his office. The guy who married Paula, Lew's ex-girl, has become a hopeless alcoholic, and since Lew has had so much success himself and success with picking employees for the newspaper who are ex-drunks that stay sober, he wants Lew to help straighten out the nephew, who is like a son to him - Boyd (Gig Young).

Lew says what the nephew needs are doctors and nurses. Ives is insistent on Lew being the guy to set the nephew straight. This is where my title comes in. Apparently Ives is a hands-on owner, so he has got to know something about Lew and Paula being in a relationship years before. Lew could just not succeed on purpose to get Paula back - Paula and Boyd's marriage is already on the rocks, or being around Paula that much could have Lew falling off of the wagon and being Boyd's new drinking partner. There is even an unexpected gangster angle thrown into all of this. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

It's funny, Cagney left skid marks on his way out of Warner Brothers after "Yankee Doodle Dandy", but that studio always seemed to have him pegged for the right roles. The stuff he did independently never seemed to work out and click, yet Warner's put him in films where he made three of his best mature performances - this film, "Mister Roberts", and "White Heat"- and in all three he plays completely different kinds of guys and plays them well.

As far as supporting performances here, they are all excellent. Thaxter is lovely but demure here, first the long suffering girlfriend of one drunk and then the long suffering wife of another. Sheldon Leonard is terrific as a gangster just shortly before he becomes the most successful producer in television. Raymond Massey is very good as gray character John Ives, giving Lew a second chance at the paper years before he knows he'll even need him, but when he needs him to reform his nephew, he rather undoes that good deed by using it to propel Lew forward to do his bidding. And then there is James Gleason in a small but vital "get wise to yourself" kind of role that he had been doing in front of the camera so well for twenty years.

"The Lost Weekend" it is not - but just barely. It does stress the point that alcoholism is a permanent disease, one that the alcoholic is always battling. As Lew Marsh says "One drink is too many, and all the drinks after that are the second drink". Highly recommended if you can ever find it.

A few years after The Lost Weekend won Ray Milland an Oscar for playing an alcoholic writer, James Cagney made a similarly themed movie. That's the breaks of Hollywood, but sometimes it's frustrating to the cast and crew of competing studios. At least they weren't released in the same year - talk about unfair!

Rather than spending the bulk of the movie fighting his addiction, Cagney gets his act together fairly early on in the film. Veteran character actor James Gleason helps him get sober, and as an upstanding citizen, he becomes a respected and successful journalist. One good turn deserves another, and Jimmy is called upon to help another alcoholic about to lose everything: Gig Young. Gig is very young in this film (no pun intended) and eighteen years before he won his Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? He showed his acting chops and was nominated for the statue. He has some incredible withdrawal scenes with the shakes, emotional fits, and chemical outbursts - all the classic elements of one of these movies, but for some reason, he didn't win the Oscar (and neither did Susan Hayward or Frank Sinatra four years later) and Ray Mi-bland did.

Come Fill the Cup is a very solid drama with equally solid performances from everyone in the cast. It's an important story that no matter how many times it's told, shows the audience the value of hard work, discipline, honor, and selflessness. If you like this subject matter, try Richard Egan's turn in Voice in the Mirror, or of course, Susan Hayward's in I'll Cry Tomorrow.

I saw this film for the first - and, up to now, last - time just after its release in early 1952 (original English version). "Come fill the cup" is one of those films that seem to have unjustly disappeared. It has never been released in this country, Spain, nor seen in television either here, in Belgium - where I lived 1973-1993 - or several other European countries linked to Brussels TV, U.K. not excluded. After all these years, I remember that all the actors are terrific, Cagney outstanding. Young - not surprisingly - was convincing, and the music score - an unfinished piano concert - haunting. From other comments, I assume that a DVD of this noir classic would be most welcome by Cagney fans of all ages.

Sure wish I could Buy this movie or they would show it on TV.

Does anybody know about this ??

Thanks in advance.