La foule hurle

...instead it mainly confounds! Cagney did not like many of these early programmers that he got stuck in over at Warner Brothers. He felt them a waste. I would tend to disagree with him in most cases, but this time he was somewhat right.

Cagney plays top line race car driver Joe Greer. He's sleeping with and really actually living with Lee Merrick (Anne Dvorak), plus he likes the booze. Cagney is taking a train to his home town and treats Lee like a tell-tale whiskey bottle. She has to be stowed away along with his booze or else his virginal green kid brother, Eddie, will somehow be corrupted by her. Nothing makes a girl feel like a tramp more than being treated like one. Plus, to add insult to insult, Joe thinks that any girl that is a friend of Lee's must be a tramp just because she's Lee's friend after all. What a jerk.

During his trip home, Joe finds out Eddie (Eric Linden) has been trying his hand at racing himself, and in the end Joe decides to take Eddie under his wing and introduce him to professional racing. Well, this means that Lee can't travel around with Joe anymore, and he basically puts her in cold storage - seeming to continue to support her, but staying away. Lee convinces her friend, Anne (Joan Blondell) to break Eddie's heart and corrupt him so she can hurt Joe through Eddie.

Well, life is what happens when you're making plans, and Anne and Eddie actually fall for each other, as in wanting to get married, something Joe never offered Lee. When Joe finds out that his kid brother has been corrupted by Anne, he tells her to lay off, but both Eddie and Anne tell Joe to kiss off. The topper is when Joe finds out that Lee arranged the whole thing and Joe promises revenge for all concerned out on the racetrack. These things never end well.

A supporting character through this whole thing has been race car driver "Spud" (Frank McHugh). He's a nice guy, sober, everybody likes him, and he has an adoring wife and lovely kids. His baby's shoes are his good luck charm when he drives. So you just know in this rather obvious film you are waiting for two things - for Joe to wise up and eat a little humble pie and also for Spud to become mashed potatoes.

I'll let you watch and see how this all turns out, but I think you'll see the ending from a mile away. The question I was left with was, what DOES Anne see in Eddie? He really projects no personality whatsoever, and though Eric Linden is actually just three years younger than Joan Blondell, the age difference between the characters seems much larger than that. It is not that Joan seems old, not at all. It's just that Eric Linden seems so two-dimensional. Even when Anne is trying to explain her love of Eddie to Lee, all she can ever say is "oh that kid".

I'd recommend this one just to see that the success of some of Warner Brothers' precodes and early programmers lay in their talented cast, not in the script. This is a good example of that.

Jimmy Cagney plays a race car driver who's at the top of his game. When he returns home to visit family, he's shocked to find that his much younger brother has also taken up racing. Despite Jimmy loving his work, he knows it's dangerous and wants better for his kid brother. This sets the stage for a major falling out between them and eventually the young whippersnapper actually surpasses Cagney--leading to a dandy conclusion.

This is a very good, though not especially great film by Jimmy Cagney towards the beginning of his career. The acting, writing and direction are competent. However, just seven years later, the studio remade this movie--practically word-for-word in places and even using some of the same auto racing footage!!! Considering that the remake wasn't quite as good, lacked originality and lacked Cagney, I say it's best to stick with the original.

By the way, remaking movies--often using pretty much the original script--was a common practice in the 1930s--especially at Warner Brothers. Again and again, films were recycled--sometimes only a couple years later!

Race car driver Joe Greer (James Cagney) deals with personal problems while trying to train his brother to be a driver.

The Crowd Roars is probably only of interest to racing buffs and Jimmy Cagney fans. Being one of the latter, it does feature a very good performance from Cagney as the cocksure driver who laters becomes a disillusioned bum.

Despite being second billed, Joan Blondell is given little to do as the girlfriend of Cagney's brother. Ann Dvorak gets a showy part as Cagney's long-suffering girlfriend, and, being an early 30s Warner Brothers film, Frank McHugh and Guy Kibbee have bit parts. Eric Linden is a tad annoying as Cagney's brothers.

The racing sequences are well staged by Howard Hawks, and there's a particularly nasty sequence where Frank McHugh's character is killed. Overall, it's entertaining, and doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Racing has been portrayed so well many times in film and television and always makes for an interesting setting and subject. Howard Hawks was a great director and a versatile one, taking on a good deal of genres and excelling at most (especially Westerns and screwball comedy). Another big reason for wanting to see 'The Crowd Roars' was the cast, James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak and Frank McHugh could always be counted upon to make anything better.

The cast are one of the main redeeming qualities of 'The Crowd Roars' and there is a good deal to enjoy in the dialogue and the choreography of the race scenes. Sadly, 'The Crowd Roars' did not strike me as a great film and Hawks certainly did far better films, if anything this is a lesser effort for him. If the film had a better story, didn't look as cheap and didn't have a character that made so little impact in such a jarring way, it would have fared better.

Despite having a truly loathsome character, Cagney is a knockout and has cocky charisma and intensity galore. To me he didn't seem uninterested at all. Blondell is sassy and charming in usual Blondell style, she was no stranger to this type of role and always did it well, and Dvorak is affecting. McHugh provides colourful support as one of the more likeable characters. While having reservations with the production values overall, the racing is thrillingly choreographed and excites, quite bold for back then too. The tragedy did bring a lump to my throat.

Furthermore 'The Crowd Roars' does go at an energetic pace and has snappy, hard-boiled dialogue on the whole. Hawks' direction does have moments of brilliance.

He is sadly not always in full control of his material however, and there are a few too many melodramatic scenes that lack the urgency of the racing where he doesn't fare very well stopping the drama from getting over the top. The subplot with Eddie and Ann doesn't really add very much and feels like padding. Did find the chemistry between Blondell and Eddie Linden anaemic and Linden not only lacks any kind of charisma but also injects very little personality in a sketchy role.

Sadly have to agree with some too that the production values are not the best. The studio rear projections are very cheap and over-obvious and while the choreography of the racing excites the racetrack shots feel very clumsily incorporated and could have been a lot more subtle with the editing.

In summary, worth a look but not a must recommend. 6/10

The Crowd Roars is probably the earliest sound feature film to be concerned with auto racing. It was probably a nice change of pace for James Cagney to get out on what was the NASCAR circuit of its day and not to be shooting people tied up with another mob.

In the one film he made with Cagney, Howard Hawks does a fine job in recreating the auto racing scene of its day. Several names from those ancient days of the sport appear in this film and give it a nice air of authenticity.

The problem with The Crowd Roars is that the story itself was very trite and ordinary. Younger brother Eric Linden wants to follow in Cagney's footsteps as a driver. Cagney's not crazy about his choice of female companionship in Joan Blondell. And Cagney's also reassessing his relationship with Ann Dvorak as well.

Cagney's life takes an abrupt downhill turn when best friend Frank McHugh is killed. It's not unlike what happens to him in such better known Cagney films as The Roaring Twenties and Come Fill the Cup. Only this is a bit more melodramatic.

I also wish there had been a bit more Guy Kibbee as Cagney and Linden's father to inject a note of levity in the proceedings.

Away from the racing sequences The Crowd Roars is a rather unexciting melodrama which needed improvement other than cinematography in every department. Auto racing would have to wait for a film like Grand Prix to capture the flavor of it fully. This ain't no Grand Prix.