The variety in Cagney roles

Although he won his oscar for playing song and dance man George M. Cohan, and won raves for his portrayal of the ship's captain in 'Mister Roberts," James Cagney will forever be associated with the gangster role. He seemed to make more of these movies than any other genre and the interesting thing was, he embued each of his mob characters with a different personality.

Tom Powers in the film that made him famous, "Public Enemy," is essentially a lazy, poorly educated little bully too self centered to go off to war like his brother and not ambitious enough to rise above the role of enforcer in the beer mob he joins after prohibition begins.

Rocky Sullivan in "Angels with Dirty Faces" is essentially a rebel against the system which produced him, an almost John Steinbeck outsider battling the tuxedo wearing swells running organized crime.

Eddie Bartlett in "The Roaring Twenties" is a war veteran betrayed by the system who says, ok, if its every man for himself now, I'll take up bootlegging and show you all.


Then, after the war, came two more landmark gangster roles for Cagney.

The first, Cody Jarret in "White Heat," is as psychotic a gangster as anyone ever portryed on the screen. He's a charismatic madman who can take on half a dozen prison guards when he goes crazy in the mess hall and even though he's a head shorter than any of them, we completely believe it when he knocks them down like a row of bowling pins. I once actually sat across an office waiting room from a heavily handcuffed accused killer who had started a riot in the Tombs prison in New York. Cagney's portrayal in "White Heat" reminds me of that real life criminal, because there was a wild look in his eyes I have seen nowhere else.

Then, in 1950, came "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" and Cagney again reinvented himself as yet another kind of criminal. In this one, he is a sociopath, a totally immoral man for whom the rules of society simply do not apply. Murder, betrayal, manipulation, they are all in a days work for him and their effect on other people bothers him not in the least. He smiles, he gets people to go along with his criminal schemes, but there is not a drop of sincerety in his body and everything he does is for his Ralph Cotter and for him alone. He is a man totally outside society, outside the planet.

This is one of the best roles Cagney ever played and his Ralph Cotter ranks with Orson Wells portrayal of Harry Lime,and Peter Lorre's child killer in "M" as among the greatest villains in screen history