Review: The Roaring Twenties (1939)
There’s a scene, justifiably revered, in the James Cagney headlined-Raoul Walsh directed gangster classic “White Heat”, where power-hungry criminal Cody Jarrett (Cagney), in jail on purpose to avoid a bigger come down, hears that his mother has died, and worse, at the hands of people he was aligned with. Jarrett launches into a slow boil psychopathic rage that continues to trump your expectations as it continues to get worse, and worse and worse. It’s not hammy, it’s not Cagney showboating for an Oscar, he’s MEANS it, and its one of the great bits of unexpected humanity in a villian in the movies. (Perhaps DePalma or screenwriter David Mamet was thinking of this as they shot the scene where vicious kingpin Al Capone cries at the opera , even as he’s ordering good guy Sean Connery to his death.) “White Heat” is considered a classic, and its a sacred lamb that I’m more than happy to stand beside.
Is “The Roaring Twenties”, made ten years prior, also starring Cagney and also directed by Walsh, as good? The answer is no, it lacks the originality of the above scene, but expressing disappointment would be churlish, because, on its own terms, “The Roaring Twenties” is a fabulous, well polished genre picture. The plot isn’t worth rehashing, its a rise and fall gangster morality story. Nowadays, with cynicism a little more chic, there is some possible suspense as to how these things will play out, but in the time of these movies, Hollywood was required to have the bad guy either die or go to jail, crime was not allowed to pay, and “The Roaring Twenties” is a little laughable in the insistance that crime went out with the repent of Prohibition.
But that couldn’t matter less in this case, Cagney’s a remarkable bad guy that you can’t help but root for, and it’s not just because his movies constantly stacks the deck in his favor (always providing a rival you hate more), but more because he seems to be getting into crime to ease a raging case of little man’s syndrome. Cagney’s squat, funny looking, has a higher voice than you would normally require from your villian, is always messing with a more attractive woman than you’d expect, and there’s a reason, because she always screws him over for a better looking patsy on the periphery. Cagney isn’t Tony Soprano, and he’s not even allowed the vulgar grace of a hood in a Martin Scorsese movie, he’s truly the avenging little man, with an id and a tommy gun that will square the odds in a hurry.
The treat of The Roaring Twenties is that the target of his vengeance, after a sluggish first half, eventually becomes Humphrey Bogart, two year before Sam Spade made him a legend. Like “The Maltese Falcon”, Bogart seems hungry here, Cagney doesn’t treat him with the respect he feels he deserves, so he defects from the gang, and with more success than you’d expect. Bogart’s contempt for the Cagney character perhaps mirrors the frustration he felt at the time in real life, for having not quite broken through the industry, not enjoying the success he deserved. Either way, Bogart is unchecked, feral, wonderful, with a look on his face that constantly signals frustration for yet another person he hasn’t gotten to kill. The final confrontation, between the little man who’s down in the shitter again, and the contemptious thug upstart, who’s tux seems to be mocking his unchecked fury, is explosive. For a few minutes, “The Roaring Twenties” previews the brilliance that would come ten years later in “White Heat.”
-Bowen
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