I hope they don't remake this movie.
They already remade Scarface. I hope they don't remake Little Caesar either. Does anybody think they will? This is like the age of remakes. All I could say is, I sure hope not.
shareHow anybody could remake movie with such an actor like James Cagney. It would be a suicide
shareThis film should never be remade. Cagney is iconic as the gangster and his performances are beyond equal. These films have a substance that is missing in modern gangster films. Even though they are great films, Goodfellas, Casino and so on, lack the depth of Cagney films. Modern gangster films tend to rely more on graphic violence for effect rather than delivering a strong character performances within a moral story that allows us to empathise with the gangster Cagney portrays, even if we disapprove of his actions. Do you ever empathise for De Niro or Al Pacino? These films glamorise greed and violence. There is no such glorification in the Cagney films, just the road to the inevitable end.
Apparently, in real life even the real mafia feared Cagney. J Edgar Hoover also simply transferred Cagney's gangster persona directly on to Baby Face Nelson, when he named the latter public enemy number one, even though they wer very different. I have just finished reading a biography of Baby Face Nelson and have realised how much or image of him is actually of Cagney.
Interesting you should bring up the real Mafia. This really doesn't pertain to what you were speaking of (it's the backward Italian in me I guess), but I read somewhere that the Mafia was going to put a hit on Cagney because he wanted them to keep from trying to control the Screen Actors Guild in 1933. Cagney must have been quite adimate to make them want to knock him off. Anyhow--he was saved by George Raft, who was just as tough in real life as he was in the movies and had quite a few connections to the mob.
And I've always found it interesting to know that in real life Cagney preferred to be at home with his wife and kids---and was quite a book worm. What a difference between home and work.
"Listen to them, children of the night. What music they make!" -- Dracula (1931)