A Guy Who Knew All The Angles- James Cagney’s The Roaring Twenties

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

The Roaring Twenties, starring James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, 1939

Yeah, Eddie Barrett, a big time gangster, hood really, back in the 1920s when such guys were a dime a dozen although like all things involving money some guys were a little hungrier and ruthless about sating that hunger than the others, bought the ticket, took the ride, and in the end wound up very dead on some forsaken bloodied New York marbled stoop, un-mourned and unloved. Well, that last part is not exactly true, since over the hill flame Panama who knew Eddie when he was just a raw punk starting out and did her a good turn, took a big fall for her. Yeah, Panama of the easy street times and easy virtue shed a few tears when he punched his ticket.

See Eddie knew all the angles just like a lot of guys who grew up hard, grew up on the hard knocks working class streets of New York or any other big town, had “street smarts” which in his neighborhood was prized above real smarts since what was the latter going to get you except hustling from nine to five for dimes and donuts. While not every guy who grew up hard had to use all the angles at their disposal Eddie did, and hence a few wrong turns brought him to that stony death and those few for old time memories Panama tears. Eddie, played in the film under review, The Roaring Twenties, by James Cagney but the role could have been played by half a dozen hard-nosed guys, hard-nosed actors, then and now, because what Eddie had, how Eddie survived for a while in the world is something a lot of guys, and not just actors, would know, know without the script.   

Here’s the lay of the land and you judge whether Eddie did right, or got too tied up in the angles bit. Or maybe you will think that our boy just got waylaid by circumstances, you know, a combination of things that just proved too much to overcome. That is what a real smart guy (or gal) would think, lay it off on social conditions, and maybe they would be right but that is not what the street smart guys would say.  Eddie like a lot of street guys started out straight enough, had small New York, Bronx or Flatbush dreams around the early part of the 20^th century when dreams were plentiful and prospects to do okay were not outlandish. See Eddie, well, Eddie was a grease monkey, a guy pretty handy around cars, worked for a guy for a while and then figured if everything went okay would open his own shop since even back then America was in love with the automobile and guys who could fix them were aces. But here is where those of you who want to discuss that “victim of circumstances” stuff could have a field day. Just as Eddie was coming to serious manhood the troubles in Europe, you know, World War I spilled over into America and Eddie would up in the American Expeditionary Force in Europe and he joined up for the fight, did his fair share of fighting on the trench-filled fronts, made a couple of buddies, and came home safe and sound. But that is when it all started to come undone. He came back, like in a lot of wars of late, not to a hero’s welcome, but to no job, no prospects, and no liquor, no liquor because of the Volstead Act which prohibited the sale of legal liquor all through those roaring twenties, the free-wielding Jazz Age that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about, wrote about the Mayfair swells part anyway and guys like Gatsby who were trying to crash the gates even though the odds were stacked against them, but which not everybody got a chance to dive into.

So no job, no dough, no prospects Eddie Barrett faced a turning point after a hack (cab-driver, okay) friend let him go in on his cab business and while doing that work got into trouble for delivering some illegal booze to Panama’s speakeasy. He took the bust, and Panama’s gratitude sealed with tears at the end, but also got wise to the ways of the world and being a street smart guy figured to ride the wave, the free and easy booze wave (although, and here he was smart unlike some guys then who drank up the profits and later guys who snorted the cocaine profits, he didn’t drink, not at first anyway). So our boy moved up the food chain, looked to be a guy who would survive the cut in the survival of the fittest struggle.

But two things get in his way, well, two things but really one thing, a dame, a frail, a frill or whatever they called a woman in their neighborhoods in those days, a torch singer too, who was looking to make it in the bright lights of the city.  This young woman though, Jean (played by virginal good-girl Priscilla Lane) is all wrong for Eddie, Eddie from the wrong side of the tracks, since she is a clean-cut girl next door-type whatever her singing aspirations. Panama, old standby through thick and thin Panama is more Eddie’s speed. But when a guy gets gone on a woman, well, you know almost anything can happen, street smart guy or not. So Eddie takes the tumble, figures that in order to keep her in clover that he has to move more quickly up the food chain. And that is where problem number two comes in. There are already guys ahead of you in line in that food chain, and so Eddie has to get rough, get pushy with the next guy up. In the process his runs into an old war buddy, George (played by a young Humphrey Bogart), who was also street smart and who was working for the next guy up the chain. They decide, uneasily, to join forces, and for a while they are making money hand over fist, are living on easy streets.

But here is where fate, the furious fate sisters, played Eddie wrong. First off despite the dough that virginal Jean did not go for Eddie but had eyes for, what did they call it, one of her own kind, another Eddie war buddy, a lawyer and so Eddie was out in the cold on that front. I will say he took that defeat like a man and let her go. Here though is where you never know what is going to happen. The Great Depression came along and wise investment stock-heavy like everybody from the barber to the bookie to the banker Eddie goes under, had to sell out to George, cheaply which stuck in his craw. Then that old war buddy lawyer, working for the District Attorney got involved in trying to smash the crime rackets and while Eddie was down on cheap street our friend George had moved up the chain. Naturally a guy who has moved up the chain will take umbrage if the coppers try to squeeze his action and so, for Jean’s sake, yeah, Eddie is still carrying the torch for her despite everything, has that final confrontation with George and his boys and winds up on those tear-stained bloody steps for his efforts. Yeah, Eddie knew all the angles, was a smart guy, but you know when a dame is involved all bets are off. Yeah, buy the ticket, take the ride.