Post by topbilled on Mar 12, 2024 14:35:05 GMT
James Cagney had a few supporting roles at Warner Brothers when talkies came in, and it didn’t take long for studio bosses and audiences to realize he was destined for bigger things. His breakthrough performance in 1931’s THE PUBLIC ENEMY guaranteed him the star treatment and his choice of scripts, usually with him typecast in other gangster dramas. He left for awhile in the late 30s due to a feud with Jack Warner, but he soon returned to the fold and had another triumph with another bad guy role in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. He managed to stretch his acting muscles a bit in the next decade, eventually earning an Oscar for the musical YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. He left the studio again during the mid-40s, this time to freelance and make independent pictures for his own production company. But again he returned to Warners in 1949 for another gangster crime flick—WHITE HEAT, a film that he is just as identified with now as PUBLIC ENEMY. There were other films for Warners in the 1950s such as A LION IS IN THE STREETS. And in 1955, Cagney made his last feature for the studio, costarring in the big screen adaptation of MISTER ROBERTS.
Check out:
THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)
JIMMY THE GENT (1934)
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938)