Winter of Cagney: Love Me Or Leave Me

February 7, 2026February 7, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

I’m watching James Cagney movies this winter.

This week, my pick was Love Me or Leave Me (1955).

This was a hard one to watch because Cagney was such a jerk in it. I started it not knowing a thing about the true story, so I kept hoping he would transform and become a nicer person before the end of the film.

That certainly did not happen, even though the makers of this movie tried to make things seem nice and tied up at the end.

First, an online description:

During the 1920s, a small-time Chicago criminal, Martin Snyder (James Cagney), discovers a beautiful dancer, Ruth Etting (Doris Day), after she’s fired from her job at a nightclub. Under Martin’s management, Ruth works her way to the top of the entertainment industry, eventually becoming a famous jazz singer and Broadway actress. But as Ruth’s popularity grows, Martin’s obsessive and controlling behavior begins to threaten her success and happiness.

This movie was shot in technicolor so don’t let any black and white photos I share here fool you. It was directed by Charles Vidor.

This movie starts with something that was in another movie I just watched this week — men at clubs paying to dance with girls. They were called taxi dancers or dancehall dancers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_dancer

It doesn’t go beyond dancing, that I know of, but I had no idea this was a thing in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s or, well, ever. There were girls who were hired as dancers and were employed by clubs. Men would pay to dance with a woman for a dance or a few or the night.

Lucille Ball apparently did this before she went into acting and it is the job her character has in the movie from 1946. I’ll be sharing about this movie at some point here on the blog.

In this movie, Doris Day is a taxi dancer who is fired after the man who pays to dance with her gets a little too handsy…if you catch my drift.

Cagney sees her firing and her and he’s immediately hooked.

Cagney is playing Martin “Marty” Snyder, a small time Chicago gangster who also dabbled in the entertainment business.

He is definitely physically attracted to Ruth, and at first, all he wants to do is get her a new job at one of his places as a dancer so he can make her one of his girls. He wants to take her to Florida with him. To stay with him. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.

Ruth doesn’t want to be a dancer or his lover, though. She wants to be a singer, and when she tells him this, he finds a way to make her a singer. One way he does that is by hiring a piano player named Johnny Alderman, who works at his club as her singing coach.

Of course, she and Johnny start to fall in love, but Marty is oblivious to this and keeps finding ways to boost Ruth’s career.

He seems to think that if he does that, she’ll eventually want to thank him and sleep with him. This movie was released in 1955, so none of these things about sleeping with him are said directly, but they are implied.

There are a lot of singing sequences in this movie, but I have to agree with Roger Fristoe who wrote an article for TCM.com, and said the movie isn’t really considered a musical despite the singing. It is, instead, a dramatic biography of Ruth Etting.

Cagney and Doris Day were in a previous musical together in 1950 —The West Point Story.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Doris Day or her singing, and I do NOT know why! There is something about her that just rubs me wrong. My previous impression of her was changed while watching this movie because she really does an amazing job as Ruth in this movie, or at least as far as I know, since I’ve never seen footage of Ruth Etting.

Doris made me feel so horrible for Ruth that I had to look for the real story of her.

It was depressing to find out that her experience with Martin, whose real name was Moe Snyder, was even worse, darker, and more complex than this movie portrayed.

In the movie, there is a culminating event that shows us even more of the true character of Marty and in real life there was one as well. I won’t tell you what happens in the movie but in real life Moe held Ruth, his adult daughter, and Ruth’s boyfriend hostage. Eventually, his daughter was able to get ahold of a gun, shot at the floor in front of her father, and then held the gun on him until the police arrived. It’s a little less dramatic in the movie.

You can read the full account here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Etting

Ruth Etting lived into her 80s and would have been in her 60s when the movie came out. She reportedly said she felt that Doris played her a little harder and tougher than she really was and she said she never worked as a dancehall girl, suggesting the wrote that into the movie simply so they could use one of Etting’s songs, “10 Cents A Dance” in the movie.

“They took a lot of liberties with my life, but I guess they usually do that kind of thing,” Etting said.

There is a violent scene between Doris and Cagney at one point in the movie that was shocking, but, according to Doris, would have been more shocking if they had kept what Doris and Cagney actually filmed.

“He attacks me savagely, and the way Cagney played it, believe me, it was savage,” she was quoted as saying in her biography. “He slammed me against the wall, ripped off my dress, my beads flying, and after a tempestuous struggle, in which I tried to fight him off with every realistic ounce of strength I had, he threw me on the bed and raped me. It was a scene that took a lot out of me but it was one of the most fully realized physical scenes I have ever played…it wasn’t until I saw the movie in its release that I became aware that most of the scene had been cut.”

It had been cut because of the censors.

This was a movie that broke Doris out of her normal good-natured, bubbly roles, and the studio did worry that her fans would revolt at the idea of her in anything so gritty.

They didn’t need to worry since the movie earned six Oscar nominations, including a third Best Actor nomination for Cagney.

It ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

Of Doris’ performance, Cagney said in a biography about him that he watched the movie again in 1980, and “Just saw something I hadn’t noticed before. There are no other women to speak of in the cast. Doris is so very much alone, which heightens the effect of the male world upon her. How many nice girls there are, and were, in this business that were just so afflicted by the presence everywhere of intimidating males.’“

My impression of Cagney’s character is that he was a sad man who didn’t know how to get what he wanted without bullying people.

He loved Ruth Etting and was so afraid of losing her that he abused her mentally, emotionally, eventually physically, and sexually.

Ruth went for it because she wanted to be famous, and he was getting her to where she wanted to go.

I found it sad that not only did Ruth have to go through an abusive relationship with a “Marty” but Doris did as well.

According to TCM.com, “A final irony about Love Me or Leave Me is the fact that the relationship between Ruth Etting and Marty Snyder had some disturbing parallels to the relationship between Doris Day and her husband Marty Melcher. Like Snyder, Melcher also controlled Day’s business affairs, made creative decisions for her even though he had no musical experience, and lived through her work. When Melcher died in 1968, Day discovered that he had mismanaged her entire life savings of $20 million dollars, leaving her completely broke.”

While this was a well-acted and written film, I can’t say it is one I would want to watch again because of the tough subject matter. I noticed in this movie, as I have in other Cagney movies, that a lot of Cagney’s acting is done with his eyes and that signature smirk.

Next up in my Winter of Cagney is White Heat. I have heard a lot about this one and am really looking forward to it.

Here is my full revised list for the Winter of Cagney (I had to move some things around when I couldn’t find two of the movies in my original list streaming, and also haven’t yet ordered the rather expensive DVDs):

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

The Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Angels With Dirty Faces

The Bride Came C.O.D. (which will move me into my Spring of Bette Davis)

I still hope to watch Man of A Thousand Faces when I order the DVD.

Angels With Dirty Faces

Sources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/musical/18538/love-me-or-leave-me-1955

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Me_or_Leave_Me_(film)

https://www.dorisdaymagic.com/love-me-or-leave-me.html

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Winter of Cagney: The Public Enemy (1931)

January 30, 2026February 3, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I’m watching James Cagney movies this winter and up this week is The Public Enemy (1931), which was moved up in my list because I could not find Angles with Dirty Faces streaming anywhere! I was very disappointed because I really wanted to see it. I am going to look for that and Man of Many Faces (which I also could not find streaming) on BluRay or DVD so I can watch them sometime in February.

The Public Enemy is a bit of somber movie, more so than the previous movies I watched.

It appears to be a life lesson for would-be hoodlums, based on the warning at the beginning and end of the movie. The producers wanted everyone to be sure to know they weren’t glorifying criminals by making this movie, but instead warning people of what happens when they become one.

I strive not to place spoilers in my posts about the movies I watch but I will say this movie indeed showed the rough life that criminals have, usually self-inflicted.

The movie starts when our main characters — Tommy Powers (Cagney) and his friend Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) — are young boys.

They’ve already started a life of crime by sneaking into the movies and stealing buckets of beer. They steal little items and become pickpockets, and as they grow, the crimes grow with them.

The two go from being a couple of stooges for various crime bosses to leading the way in some major criminal actions, including creating a monopoly on beer production.

This was Cagney’s fifth movie and is said by film buffs to have catapulted him into a string of gangster roles he later worked hard to get out of.

This movie included one of his most infamous scenes – shoving a grapefruit in the face of his girlfriend – to show how far he’d fallen and how unfeeling he’d become. More about that a little later.

Tommy Power is the second son in the family and lives in his older brother’s shadow.

He and his brother are raised by their mother. I don’t know if we are told what happens to his father, but his father does whip him in the beginning for stealing skates and says he doesn’t care if he goes to jail.

This movie is honestly just so well done. You really need to take your time to watch it and catch some of the subtleties in the scenes.

There is one scene where Tommy and Matt go to talk to Putty Nose, a gang leader who once convinced them to a do a job for him, promising nothing would go wrong.

I’m warning you now that there are spoilers ahead —

The job went wrong and Putty Nose disappeared. Tommy and Matt have been looking to get revenge on the guy for years and now they’re big shots in the crime world.

They track Putty Nose down and he starts begging for his life. Tommy and Matt are just standing there in nice dress clothes, fanc wool winter coats, and bowler hats, stone-faced for the most part, while Putty Nose begs the not to kill him. This is after Matt’s wedding, I should add.

The guy reminds them he knew them when they were kids and asks if they remember a song he used to play for them that they loved. He goes to the piano and starts playing, and Tommy has this friendly smile while he walks over to stand behind Putty Nose while he plays. Tommy keeps smiling and nodding and then slowly pulls a gun from the inside of his jacket while the camera pans away to Matt standing by the door.

There’s a gunshot and then —something I didn’t notice but my son did — you hear Putty Nose try to finish the song through a gurgling noise. Yikes. Then there is the sound of his body sliding across the piano keys and then to the floor.

It’s all off-camera, and it almost makes it more impactful because the camera is focused not Putty Nose dying but on how Matt’s expression changes from emotionless to ever-so-slightly dazed and horrified.

A few seconds after we hear the thud of the body hitting the floor, Tommy walks back into frame and says, “I’m going to go give Gwen a call. She’s probably home by now,” while he opens the door to leave.

He doesn’t look back, he doesn’t comment on what just happened. There is no remorse at all. It’s like he just stepped on a bug on the sidewalk while walking down the street, and he’s on to the rest of his life now.

Cagney pulls the scene off just brilliantly.

Like he pulls it off the whole movie. He makes the viewer both hate and love Tommy — feel sorry for him and not feel sorry for him at all.

Tommy makes his own bed, and he has to lie in it — literally at one point.

He is a man who wants it all and wants to be important, but, in the end, can’t hold on to anything that is important to him.

Jean Harlow is in this one as well, and I know she was supposed to be a big star back then, but my husband walked in and said, “She was so overrated,” and I based on this performance, I would have to agree.

I was not blown away by her, even though the scene with her was interesting because she sat on a settee, half on Cagney’s lap, while telling him what kind of man she thought he was and running her fingers along his neck and pressing his face into her cleavage. It was a very sensual scene for a movie made in the 1930s. From what I read, she wasn’t wearing bras under her dresses either.

According to an article written by Rob Nixon on TCM.com, Cagney once asked her, “How do you keep those things up?” in reference to her breasts.

“I ice them,” Harlow said, and then left to just what she’d said she did.

This was definitely a movie made before the strict film codes went into effect.

I was surprised to learn during my research that Cagney almost didn’t get the role of Tommy Power. Instead, he was initially cast as the quieter Matt Doyle, and Woods was cast as Tommy.

“But director William Wellman had seen Cagney’s tough performance in Doorway to Hell (1930),” Nixon wrote in his article. “And after three days of shooting – and much urging by screenwriters John Bright and Kubec Glasmon – he realized a big casting mistake had been made. Luckily, producer Darryl Zanuck allowed the two actors to switch roles, otherwise film audiences would have been robbed of one of the most ferocious and iconic performances of the decade, perhaps of all Hollywood history.”

This movie was not free of injuries for the actors.

One of the most famous scenes in the movie is where Tommy shoves a grapefruit in the face of his girlfriend when he’s mad at her. This was based on a real-life incident of a Chicago gangster named Earl Weiss who once slammed an omelet into his “jabbering” girlfriend’s face.

It was decided this was too messy, so it was suggested a grapefruit be used.

“What happened next depends on who tells the story,” Nixon wrote on TCM.com. “[Actress] Mae Clarke said Cagney was only supposed to yell at her in the scene and that the actor surprised her with his impulsive use of the breakfast food. Cagney claimed the grapefruit had been decided on beforehand but that it was supposed to brush past her at an angle that would only appear to be a bona fide attack. Whatever the truth, when the time came to get the shot, Cagney smashed the grapefruit directly (and painfully, the actress said) into her face, and Clarke’s very real look of horror and surprise was recorded for posterity.”

Cagney faced his own pain, though, when Donald Cook, who played his brother, hit him for real during one scene, knocking him across the room and causing Cagney to lose a tooth. Cagney theorized that Clarke had put him up to it as revenge but he never proved it and production moved on without any more incidents, despite the fact — I can’t even believe I’m reading this — that real bullets were used in some of the shooting scenes.

The movie was based on Bright and Glasmon’s novel Beer and Blood. Yes, I would love to find it! They were nominated for an Oscar for their screenplay for the movie.

There were some really great lines in the movie, one of them being when Tommy’s brother comes back from war and accuses Tommy of running a business of “blood and booze.”

Tommy shoots back: “Your hands ain’t so clean. You killed and liked it. You didn’t get them medals for holding hands with them Germans.”

Have you ever seen this movie? If so, what did you think of it?

Here is my revised list for the rest of the Winter of Cagney:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

The Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Man of A Thousand Faces

Angels With Dirty Faces

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Public_Enemy

https://www.tcm.com/articles/31288/the-public-enemy

Winter of Cagney: Mister Roberts

January 23, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

This winter I am watching James Cagney movies for a “Winter of Cagney” marathon through the months of January and February.

Up this week is Mister Roberts, a 1955 film that couldn’t see to figure out its’ identity. I was told it was supposed to be a comedy/drama ,but I felt a lot of it was more of a drama with a few comedic moments tossed in.

I also wasn’t bowled over by Cagney’s presence in this one. He seemed more like a caricature of himself or his previous characters and that may be because of the fraught relationship he and much of the cast had with the director, John Ford. More on that later.

Just because I wasn’t overly impressed with the movie, doesn’t mean I hated it or it was all bad. Not at all. In fact, it had some nice messages along the way and it was mildly entertaining. It simply wasn’t my favorite Cagney movie of the few I have watched so far.

The movie was based on the Broadway play which was based on a novel by Thomas Heggen.

Heggen and Joshua Logan wrote the stage play, which debuted in 1948 and was very successful with Henry Fonda in the role of Mister Roberts, which he also played in the movie.

This was a movie where Cagney was a secondary character with Fonda as the main star.

William Powell and Jack Lemon rounded out the cast.

This movie takes place toward the end of World War II on a United States Navy cargo ship called the Reluctant that is stationed in the backwater areas of the Pacific Ocean. The ship is affectionately and not-so-affectionately also called The Bucket by the crew.

The ship has not seen any military or war action and this is infuriating to the executive officer/cargo chief, Lieutenant (junior grade) Douglas A. “Doug” Roberts (Henry Fonda).

He spends most of his time trying to shield the depressed crew from the unpopular and task master captain, Lieutenant Commander Morton, played by Cagney while also filing transfers to get him off the ship and into the war.

He hates the idea that he and the men of the ship are sitting in the middle of the ocean, not seeing any action while Morton simply shouts orders and waters his ridiculous palm tree that he keeps in a small pot on a balcony near his office. Morton refers the transfers to higher ups because regulations require him to but he always advises the transfer requests to be ignored so they are.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver spends most of his time on ship hiding in his bunk to avoid the captain but repeatedly says he will one day light a fire cracker “under the old man’s bunk” to get back at him for always being mean to the crew. Instead of ever doing anything bold, though, Pulver wilts under Morton’s shouts.

William Powell appears in his last feature film as the doctor on board the ship and spends much of his time dealing with crew members who make up illnesses so they don’t have to keep working under Morton’s rule.

Roberts feels the men need some rest and relaxation and leave but Morton always refuses to give it to them.

Roberts finally finds a way to get orders for some R&R time behind Morton’s back, but when Morton finds out what’s going on he’s furious and tells Roberts the only way they can have the leave is if Roberts agrees to stop filing transfer requests and starts doing everything Morton tells him to.

The idea behind this one is a good one, but I wasn’t really feeling Cagney in the role. It almost felt like he was relegated to this secondary part, even though some critics praised his portrayal of the mentally-off captain.

One thing that probably didn’t help this movie was the fact that the director, John Ford, started the filming out with aggression and was replaced halfway through due to an argument with Fonda where Ford punched Fonda in the face, as well as emergency gallbladder surgery for Ford.

Ford’s tension with the actors may be why there was so much underlying tension throughout the movie.

Ford couldn’t even get along with Cagney, and let him know they probably wouldn’t get along right from the beginning.

When Ford met Cagney at the airport, the director told the actor they would probably “tangle asses.” Cagney said he was shocked by the comment.

“I would have kicked his brains out,” Cagney said later. “He was so g******* mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man.”

The next day, Cagney was slightly late on set, and Ford was furious. Cagney allegedly interrupted Ford’s ranting by saying, “When I started this picture, you said that we would tangle asses before this was over. I’m ready now – are you?”

Ford reportedly walked away and he and Cagney had no further issues. Good thing too since Cagney had once been a champion boxer in the Bronx before becoming an actor.

Ford was replaced by Mervyn Leroy.

Joshua Logan also helped to direct, bringing his experience of having directed the original production on Broadway, but was uncredited in the film.

I was not overly impressed with Lemmon in this movie, so I was really shocked to read that he won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role.

According to the Warner Bros Fandom site, Lemmon and Cagney became close friends during filming.

“During the production of the film, Lemmon began a long-term friendship with Cagney which continued until Cagney’s death in 1986,” an article on the site reads. “Prior to his appearance in his first film, years before Mister Roberts, he started in live television. In one particular performance, Lemmon decided to play his character differently. He decided to play the character left-handed, which was opposite to his own way of movement. With much practice, he pulled off the performance without anyone noticing the change. This change even fooled Lemmon’s wife at the time. A few years went by and Lemmon met Cagney on their way to Midway Island to film Mister Roberts. They introduced themselves, and Cagney chimed in, “Are you still fooling people into believing you’re left handed?” They had a great laugh and a strong friendship was born.”

I wouldn’t really say I would skip this movie when watching Cagney movies, but, for me, I’ve seen better.

This was his last movie with Warner Bros, which is the studio where he’d spent most of his career.

A bit of trivia or facts about the film:

Henry Fonda was not the first choice for the role of Mister Roberts, even though he had played the role on Broadway. The producers felt that he had been away from film for too long (eight years) and wouldn’t be a box office draw, but also that he was too old for the role. The character was supposed to be in his 20s but Fonda was 55 at the time of the film.
Spencer Tracy turned down the role of Morton.
Ford used his Navy connections to find one of the old cargo scows to use for the story’s setting and boat; cast and crew were all sent to Midway Island for exterior shooting.
Though Ford apologized to Fonda for swinging at him, Fonda never looked at his former friend the same way again and they never worked together again.
The movie was 1955’s third highest box office hit.
The next year Ford made what many consider his greatest movie, The Searchers.
The movie was remade for TV in 1984 with Kevin Bacon as Mister Roberts

Up next week I am watching Angels With Dirty Faces, one of Cagney’s early movies with Humphrey Bogart.

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Man of A Thousand Faces

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Sources:

Website: https://warnerbros.fandom.com/wiki/Mister_Roberts_(1955_film)

Website: https://www.tcm.com/articles/72472/mister-roberts-1955

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Winter of Cagney: Strawberry Blonde

January 15, 2026January 14, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I am watching James Cagney movies this winter.

This week I’m writing about Strawberry Blonde (1941). Some listings add a “The” to the name, but the original title was just Strawberry Blonde.

Here we have another Cagney film (like Yankee Doodle Dandy) that isn’t a gangster film but does show him as a bit of a rough guy. Rough, but ultimately good.

This movie, told in one long flashback, shows a slow transformation of Cagney’s character and leaves you wondering throughout the first part of the movie whether you like him or not.

By the end, you’re rooting for him and maybe for him to get a bit of revenge on some people too.

James’ character is Biff Grimes, a young and scrappy dental student with a good heart who lives in New York City. He’s obsessed with a strawberry blonde named Virginia Brush played by Rita Hayworth, who likes to walk past the barber shop each day and rile up all the men. I’m going to say upfront that I didn’t recognize Rita in this movie at all. First, I’m used to her as a brunette, second, I actually haven’t seen her in that many movies. (Summer of Rita? Hmmm….good idea! Spring has been reserved for Bette Davis.)

The only problem with this obsession is that his friend Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson) is also interested in Virginia.

Hugo and Virginia work to push Virginia’s friend, Amy, a nurse and women’s rights activist played by Olivia de Havilland, on to Biff, especially after Hugo promises Virginia a wealthy life if she elopes with him.

Biff has no interest in Amy, who annoys him and says solicitous and suggestive things to him to show him that women are just as good as men. We get the impression, however, that Amy doesn’t believe everything she’s saying. She simply likes to shock people.

Eventually, though, love blooms in a very authentic way between Biff and Amy, but not without some mix-ups, difficulties, and trials along the way, culminating when Hugo reveals even more of his crooked ways after he hires Biff.

You’ll have to watch the movie to see what happens.

I love Olivia de Havilland’s character in this. She wants to be bold at the same time she doesn’t want to be. It’s like how James’ character wants to be a tough guy but yet doesn’t.

The movie is ahead of its’ time in my opinion, with so many suggestive (yet not crude) subjects raised, and witty banter exchanged back and forth between James and Olivia. I was very charmed by this movie, which I watched before I officially decided I was going to do a marathon of Cagney movies.

Each time I watch one of his movies I fall more in love with him as an actor. He was witty, charming, and that grin was so infectious.

The movie is based on a Broadway play called One Sunday Afternoon by James Hagan. It’s a bit of a musical, comedy, and drama, but not a super, super heavy drama. It was first made into a non-musical film by the same name as the play in 1933. That movie was directed by Stephen Roberts and starred Gary Cooper. Unlike the earlier picture, Strawberry Blonde was a hit.

Director Raoul Walsh remade the film again as a full musical in 1948, according to TCM.com, changing the name back to One Sunday Afternoon, but Strawberry Blonde still remained the more popular version.

The part of Viriginia was originally supposed to be played by Ann Sheridan, the Oomph Girl from Warner Pictures, (No, I have no idea what or who that is!) but instead Rita was loaned to Warners by Columbia for the role. Sheridan was in a contract dispute with Warner at the time and refused to do it.

All the better for Rita.

Felicia Feaster wrote for TCM.com, that Hayworth “brought her typical enigmatic, frosty perfection to the role. Her fortuitous securing of the role in The Strawberry Blonde helped establish her sex queen status as the “Love Goddess.” Though a confident mantrap on camera, Hayworth was just a shy, reserved girl off, causing Cagney to marvel at how, after her scenes, she would just “go back to her chair and sit there and not communicate.’”

Olivia was also praised for her role in the film.

Many critics commented on her gift for comedy and said it matched Cagney’s perfectly in this movie and I have to agree.

A bit of trivia about the movie:

Hayworth received $450 per week for the film

She also dyed her hair for the movie to fit the title name.

This film marked the first time Hayworth was seen as a redhead and the only time that audiences heard her real singing voice.
When Warner Bros. released Strawberry Blonde on February 21, 1941, “the studio knew it had a hit on its hands.” Walsh considered it his most successful picture to date, and he called it his favorite film.
Cagney looked at the movie as a way to break out of playing tough guys and it was his brother William Cagney who suggested he take the project on as a gift to their mother Carrie, “who would only live a few more years.”

Jack Warner (of Warner Bros) screened the 1933 film and wrote a memo to his production head Hal B. Wallis telling him to watch it also: “It will be hard to stay through the entire running of the picture, but do this so you will know what not to do.”
James Cagney was past forty at the time of filming but was playing much younger, and was in fact only seven years younger than his on-screen father Alan Hale.

The TCM print ran 99 minutes; the extra two minutes was due to a ‘follow-the-bouncing-ball’ sing-along after “The End”, to the main song “The Band Played On.”

In March 1941, Warner Brothers distributed this film on a double bill with another comedy, Honeymoon for Three (1941) starring Ann Sheridan and George Brent.

Even though IMDb and some other websites use the title “The Strawberry Blonde,” the Warner Bros. collateral at the time of release and the Warner Archives DVD do not include “The,” leaving the title as simply “Strawberry Blonde.”

James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland previously co-starred in The Irish in Us (1935). They both also appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935).

So, have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

If you haven’t seen it, I really would recommend it for a fun, lighthearted (for the most part) watch.

Next week I am watching Mister Roberts.

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Man of A Thousand Faces

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Additional sources:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034236/trivia/

https://www.tcm.com/articles/25791/the-strawberry-blonde

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strawberry_Blonde

Winter of Cagney: Taxi (1931)

January 9, 2026January 11, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

This winter I’m watching movies with James Cagney.

This week I was supposed to watch Man of Many Faces but, but unfortunately, I didn’t check to see if it was streaming anywhere before I decided to watch it (at my husband’s suggestion) and I couldn’t order a Blu-Ray, which seems to be the only format available to watch it on, before this week.

I am hoping to get a copy of it before the end of this feature so I can watch it and write about it.

What I ended up doing was just moving up my movies I had scheduled and placing Man of Many Faces at the end of the list.

Taxi was one of Cagney’s first breakout films, right after his actual breakout film, The Public Enemy.

This is the movie where he almost says the words everyone has always tried to say he said: “You dirty rat.”

What he actually says in the movie is, “”Come out and take it, you yellow-bellied rat! Or I’ll make you take it through the door!”

If you want to know why he said those words, you’ll have to watch the movie.

This is also the first time Cagney showed us he can dance as he participates in a dance competition during the movie.

According to TCM.com, “To play his competition on the dance floor, Cagney recommended his pal, fellow tough-guy-dancer George Raft. The scene culminates in Raft winning the contest and getting slugged by Cagney for his trouble. Within a year or so, Raft — uncredited here — would emerge as a Warner Bros. star in his own right.”

The story of this hour-and-nine-minute-long movie is pretty simple.

Cagney plays Matt Nolan, an employee of an independent cab company in New York City during a time when a large cab corporation was trying to push independent cab companies out of business.

Matt wants to date Sue Riley (Loretta Young), the daughter of his boss who gets sent to jail after he shoots the man who trashed his cab in the cab war.

Nolan is a complex man with a temper but also a deep love for those who mean the most to him. A lot of the movie is him courting Sue and her telling him that he needs to get his temper in check.

I spent a lot of the movie telling Matt to chill out and telling Sue to dump Matt.

I won’t go into too much detail about the plot, but something tragic does happen part way through the movie, which will make Matt have to decide if he will let his temper rule him or not. You’ll have to watch to see what happens.

This movie was made before the Hays Code came into play. What is the Hays Code, you may ask?

Let Wikipedia explain: “The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays’s leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.”

Loretta Young later confessed to having a crush on Cagney.

“I admired him so much, though I could never tell him so,” she revealed. “I remember having this romantic dream about him…in which I was drowning and he rescued me.”

She recalled that Cagney had “complete control over expressing the whole gamut of emotions with his eyes. He could accomplish with a glance what other actors need a whole bag of tricks to put over.”

I found this tidbit of information in the TCM article shocking: “As in The Public Enemy, several scenes in Taxi! involved the use of live machine-gun bullets. After a few of the slugs narrowly missed Cagney’s head, he outlawed the practice on future films.”

Have you ever seen this one?

What did you think of it?

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Man of A Thousand Faces

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Winter of Cagney: Yankee Doodle Dandy

January 2, 2026January 2, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

For winter this year, I am watching James Cagney movies.

First up is Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) which Cagney won an Oscar for.

This is a biopic about the entertainer George Cohan. Actually, though, he was more than just an entertainer. Under that umbrella, he was a playwright, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and theatrical producer.

Don’t think you know who Cohan is?

Well, if you’ve ever heard the songs “You’re A Grand Old Flag”, “Over There”, “Yankee Doodle Dandy Boy,” or “Give My Regards to Broadway,” then you have heard some of George’s work.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is his story, but . . . with some poetic license from what I’ve been reading. Cohan comes out looking a bit better than he might have been in real life, considering his first wife divorced him for adultery and that mysteriously didn’t make the movie. The movie did portray him as a bit of an arrogant kid who pushed his way to stardom, so he wasn’t portrayed as totally perfect, however. Plus, Cohan had the final say on the movie so maybe that’s why he looked a bit better in the movie. *wink*

Cohan was born July 3, 1878 according to baptismal records but according to him and his parents, he was born on the Fourth of July. This “fact” would be used throughout his career as he asserted his bold patriotism for the United States of America.

“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I’ve got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She’s my Yankee Doodle joy”

From the musical Little Johnny Jones

Cohan’s was an Irish immigrant named Jeremiah (Keohane) Cohan. His mother was Helen “Nellie” Costigan Cohan, and his sister was Josephine “Josie” Cohan Niblo (1876–1916). Together the four of them would form a Vaudeville act called The Four Cohans.

George began singing and playing the violin at the age of 8 and toured with his family from 1890 to 1901.

During these years, he made famous a speech at the end of their show that you might have heard over the years, or even said yourself as a joke: “My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you.”

*The Four Cohans with George on the left.*

He and his sister made their Broadway debuts in 1893 in a sketch called The Lively Bootblack.

I won’t give you his entire biography here, so if you want to know even more about his life, the movie will fill you in or there is a ton of information about him online.

Many people think of James Cagney with a New York accident asking questions like, “You talking to me?” because of the many mobster-themed movies he appeared in in the 1930s. (I don’t think he actually ever said that line, though. Much like he never actually said, ‘You dirty rat! The quote was actually longer and included the words “You yellow-bellied dirty rat” in the movie Taxi, 1931.)

“There is a story that James Cagney stood on his toes while acting, believing he would project more energy that way,” Roger Ebert wrote. That sounds like a press release, but whatever he did, Cagney came across as one of the most dynamic performers in movie history–a short man with ordinary looks whose coiled tension made him the focus of every scene.”

Yankee Doodle Dandee showed there was lot more to Cagney than many moviegoers realized.

For one, Cagney could dance, which he had showcased in other movies but really was able to showcase in this movie.

Cagney could also be funny and charming — which moviegoers had seen in other movies but really saw in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Cagney almost didn’t get the role that he would later call his favorite, according to an article on TCM.com.

Originally Cohan and MGM had combined to make a film that would cover when Cohan had toured with his family. It would have starred Mickey Rooney. The deal collapsed because the studio head, Louis B. Mayer, refused to let Cohan have the final cut on the film.

Samuel Goldwyn then expressed an interest in making a movie with Cohan and planned on giving the role of Cohan to Fred Astaire.

Astaire turned it down, and Warner Bros. picked up the rights and cast Cagney, who at the time was being suspected of being a communist sympathizer due to being president of the Screen Actors’ Guild a — gasp! — union!

“He wanted to show his patriotism on screen,” the TCM article reads. “And the George M. Cohan story was the perfect vehicle to do that.”

Cagney broke into infamy with this movie. I am sure many of you have seen one of his most famous scenes — when he tap dances down a long flight of stairs while leaving the white house after talking to President Franklin Roosevelt. This scene, like many others in his career, was improvised by Cagney, who called it his favorite moment in the movie.

“I didn’t think of it till five minutes before I went on,” Cagney later recalled. “And I didn’t check with the director or anything; I just did it.”

Yankee Doodle Dandy was directed by Michael Curtiz (most well-known for directing Casablanca).

According to TCM and other sources online, Curtiz letting Cagney have free rein in the role is what made it such a success and made him so enamored with Cagney as an actor.

“The ordinarily hard-boiled Curtiz was so moved by the scene in which Cohan bids farewell to his dying father (Walter Huston) that he reportedly ruined a take with his loud sobs,” reads the article on TCM.com. “According to Cagney biographer Michael Freedland, tears streamed down Curtiz’s face as he stumbled away to find a handkerchief and exclaimed to Cagney, “Gott, Jeemy, that was marvelous!’”

I can speak from the experience of seeing the movie that that scene was heartbreakingly marvelous. I wasn’t super emotionally invested in the movie as I watched it, but during that scene, I teared up and failed to hold back a small sob. Maybe it’s because my parents are older, so I could relate to that scene more than I might have been able to if I had watched this when I was younger.

Critic Brenden Gill said of Cagney’s role in the film: “George M. Cohan was by all accounts something of a scoundrel. He was an impossible human being, but he was a tremendous actor, comedian, showman, and he wrote great popular songs. He exists in our memories now not as George M. Cohan but as James Cagney in the movie.”

“Cagney managed to capture this persona that Cohan created,” another critic I heard (but couldn’t find the name of) said. “It was brash. It was pushy. It was aggressive. It was funny. Very American. Very New York. And Cohan created this character as his own persona on stage, but it really became the emblem of Broadway itself.”

Cagney, according to TCM.com writer Jeremy Arnold, wanted to portray Cohan correctly, not only because Cohan — 63 at the time the movie was made —had final approval over the film, but for accuracy.

“To perfect Cohan’s distinctive, strutting style of dance,” Arnold writes. “Cagney rehearsed with choreographer John Boyle, who had worked with Cohan extensively in the 1920s. Cagney also channeled Cohan’s singing voice, which was more like rhythmic speaking, and brought his own charismatic talent to the romantic, comedic, and dramatic scenes.”

There were liberties taken with Cohan’s life, as I mentioned above. For instance, his two wives were combined into a single character. Also, the chronology and order of his parents’ death was also switched around (probably to make that death bed scene even more emotional). Additionally, in one scene when he suffers a flop with a non-musical drama called Popularity, a newspaper seller announces the torpedoing of the Lusitania. The play flopped in 1906, but the Lusitania sunk in 1915, according to TCM.

Despite these changes, most critics agree that the movie captured Cohan’s life and music perfectly.

“Yankee Doodle Dandy, with its many flag-waving musical numbers, proved just the ticket for World War II-era audiences and became the top-grossing movie of its year, as well as Warner Bros.’ top-grossing movie to that time,” Jeremy Arnold wrote for TCM.com.

In addition to Cagney, the movie also starred Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Worf, Irene Manning, Rosemary Decamp, Jeanne Cagney (Cagney’s sister who played his sister Josie in the movie), and Eddie Foy Jr as Eddie Foy Sr.

So, a pause here. Eddie Foy Sr. was another entertainer of a similar style and also performed vaudeville with his family, The Seven Foys.

There is a movie called The Seven Little Foys (1955) starring Bob Hope as Eddie Foy Sr. and in it there is a cameo by Cagney, who portrays George M. Cohan, reprising his role from Yankee Doodle Dandy.

The two dancers face off in a very fun tap-dancing routine on a boardroom table. You can catch that here:

As for what movie watchers or critics now think of Yankee Doodle Dandy, you can find a variety of opinions online — some calling it satire to make fun of capitalism and nationalism while others say it is a disgusting display of support for capitalism and nationalism.

Some love the over-the-top patriotism and some absolutely hate it.

I guess you’ll have to make up your own mind what it promotes or represents and what it doesn’t, but what many can’t deny is the talent Cagney displays in the movie.

I definitely enjoyed seeing Cagney’s talent, but at first glance didn’t enjoy his dancing style. It was floppy and lanky instead of smooth and debonair like Gene Kelley or Fred Astaire, who I am more used to, but after seeing footage of Cohan, I now get that Cagney was imitating Cohan’s dancing style.

After hearing and seeing recordings of Cohan this week, I realized how perfectly Cagney nailed Cohan in the movie. No wonder he won the Oscar for best actor that year. It was also his only Oscar, incidentally.

Cagney pulled the role off even though “he (couldn’t) really dance or sing,” observed critic Edwin Jahiel, “but he acts so vigorously that it creates an illusion, and for dance-steps he substitutes a patented brand of robust, jerky walks, runs and other motions.”

Ebert wrote in his review of the film : “Unlike Astaire, whose entire body was involved in every movement, Cagney was a dancer who seemed to call on body parts in rotation. When he struts across the stage in the “Yankee Doodle Dandy” number, his legs are rubber but his spine is steel, and his torso is slanted forward so steeply we’re reminded of Groucho Marx.”

I’ll have to check out Cagney’s dancing in other movies to really get an idea of his actual style.

Cohan saw the picture shortly before he died in November 1942, by the way, and reportedly said afterward, “My God, what an act to follow.” The next morning, he sent Cagney a congratulatory telegram. And then he died. Ha! Kidding. I have no idea when he actually died but I do know he was only 64 so it was shortly after the movie was released.

I was amazed by the amazing sets for the incredible musical scenes in this movie. The scenes — which included moving sets and fireworks, and a floor like a conveyor belt that made the actors seem like they were continuously marching toward the audience — were way ahead of moviemaking at that time

Maybe that is why the movie cost so much to make, which was $1.5 million and well above the standard for the time.

Luckily, it grossed $6 million.

You can catch some of that movie/Broadway magic here:

As for Cagney’s acting in the movie, I thought it was great and engaging. Even parts that could have been a bit cheesy were enhanced by Cagney’s performance.

I loved the dancing and singing sequences throughout the movie. Those snippets were perfect introductions to the style of musicals and Broadway at the time, though that style became the style of Broadway in the future as well, thanks to Cohan.

Have you seen this one?

You can learn a bit more about Cohan in this clip:

If you want to see Cohan himself perform “Over There,” you can see that here:

And for a sneak peek of the movie, here is the trailer from when it was released:

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/)

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

The Man of A Thousand Faces

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Additional Resources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/24022/yankee-doodle-dandy-1942

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-yankee-doodle-dandy-1942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle_Dandy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Little_Foys

James Cagney: One of the most versatile actors of the Golden Age

January 1, 2026January 2, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

When people think of the actor James Cagney, many might think of his roles as gangsters, bad guys, and double-crossers. He was much more than that, though, in his acting roles and in his life.

This month I am watching James Cagney movies as part of my Winter of Cagney movie event.

To kick it off, I thought it might be good to share a little about the actor’s life.

Cagney was born to an Irish bartender father (James Francis Cagney) in the rough lower east side of New York City. His father, who Cagney says was an alcoholic, was also an accomplished boxer and at the age of 14 Cagney followed his footsteps and became one of Yorkville’s best fighters. James’ mother was Carolyn Elizabeth Cagney (my mom’s name is ironically Carolyn Elizabeth..but not Cagney).

“My childhood was surrounded by trouble, illness, and my dad’s alcoholism,” Cagney wrote in his autobiography, Cagney on Cagney. “But as I said, we just didn’t have the time to be impressed by all those misfortunes. I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don’t-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.”

While in high school, Cagney worked wrapping packages at Wanamaker’s Department Store, for $16 a week. His introduction into entertainment came when a fellow employee at Wanamaker’s told him a vaudeville troupe paid its players $35 a week. When Cagney auditioned, he told them he could sing and dance. He couldn’t do either, but he still had a successful audition. It was while working in Vaudeville that he met Frances Willard. They married in 1922 and remained married until his death 64 years later. She lived until 1994.

Cagney’s big break on the stage came in 1929 when he acted opposite Joan Blondell in Penny Arcade.

His big screen debut came in 1930 with Sinner’s Holiday, and he made four more films that year. Public Enemy (1931) and Taxi (1931) are two movies where the world was introduced to him as a gangster.

Growing up, I heard a lot of impressions of Cagney and those always claimed he said, “You dirty rat….” Or “All right, you guys.”

For the record, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica website, Cagney never actually said the words “You dirty rat,” or “All right, you guys” in any of his movies. Wow. Talk about a disappointing revelation there. Ha!

He did, however, say, “Come out here and take it, you dirty yellow-bellied rat or I’ll give it to you through the door,” in the 1931 movieTaxi.

According to The Kennedy Center website (he was honored there in 1980), “The unforgettable ‘fruit facial’ scene, in which he rams a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s nose is exemplary of Cagney’s spontaneity, for the script called for him to slap Clarke with an omelet.”

Eventually, though, Cagney would tire of “packing guns and beating up women,” as he said in his autobiography, and after a string of movies where he played a gangster type figure, he did try some different roles, including the one he won an Oscar for — playing George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

“No matter the genre of the film he was in, James Cagney always brought unique, riveting energy to the screen,” writes Jeremy Arnold for TCM.com. “Known best for his tough-guy and gangster roles, a persona cemented by his fourth picture, The Public Enemy (1931), Cagney had actually started his showbiz career in 1920s vaudeville as a song and dance man, and to the end of his life he thought of himself primarily as a hoofer. Hollywood didn’t give him a chance to show off those talents until his fourteenth film, Footlight Parade (1933), and even after that movie’s success, Cagney went on to make surprisingly few musicals.”

In 1934 and 1940, Cagney was accused of being a communist sympathizer and many say this is why he took the part in Yankee Doodle Dandy — to attempt to clear his name and show that he really was a true patriot. His brother, in fact, urged him to take the part for that very reason.

Information online from various sources also suggests Cagney once had a hit on him by the mafia for work he did against the Chicago Outfit and the Mafia because they were extorting money from Hollywood studios by threatening to strikes by a mob-controlled labor union.

Cagney once shared that a hitman was sent and a heavy light was dropped on his head but it didn’t kill him, and the hit was eventually dropped when actor George Raft made a call to have the contract canceled. Raft was an American actor who played mobsters in movies and was (apparently) connected to the mob as well.

Some of Cagney’s most famous movies, besides the ones already mentioned, include:

White Heat (1949), Come Fill the Cup (1951), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), Mister Roberts (1955), and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957).

White Heat is one film that Cagney enthusiasts say you have to watch (and I will be). One reason is for the scene where Cagney breaks down after finding out his mother has been killed. The scene was shot with 300 extras in a prison cafeteria and none of the men knew what Cagney was going to do. Many of the men in the scene actually thought he had lost his mind which is why their reactions in the background are so real.

“I didn’t have to psych myself up for the scene in which I go berserk on learning of my mother’s death,” he wrote in his autobiography Cagney by Cagney. “You don’t psych yourself up for those things. You do them. I knew what deranged people sounded like. As a youngster I had visited Ward’s Island. A pal’s uncle was in the hospital for the insane. My God, what an education that was. The shrieks. The screams of those people under restraint. I remembered those cries. I saw that they fit the scene. I called on my memory to do as required. No need to ‘psych up.’”

White Heat is also where Cagney uttered one of his most famous lines, “On top of the world, Ma!”

After playing the manic Coca-Cola executive in Billy Wilder’s One Two Three in 1961, Cagney retired from acting and moved to an 800-acre farm in Dutchess County, NY with his wife where he relaxed, read, played tennis, raised horses, swam, and wrote some poetry.

It was on that farm where he died on Easter Sunday, 1986, of a heart attack at the age of 86.

I was saddened to read from a couple of sources that he did have adopted children, but the relationships with them fell apart, and his adopted son died of a heart attack when Cagney was 84, without them really speaking to each other for years..

Many actors and famous people have commented on Cagney, his acting, his movies, and his life in general.

One of those actors was George C. Scott who never worked with him but met him toward the end of Cagney’s life and borrowed a quote about General Robert E. Lee that Scott said fit Cagney as well: “What he seemed he was, a wholly human gentleman. The essential elements of whose positive character were two and only two — simplicity and spirituality.”

Scott said he was “perfectly himself” and “he was what he seemed to be.”

I will be watching the following movies for my Winter of Cagney:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

The Man of A Thousand Faces

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

What Cagney movies have you watched?

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cagney

https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/c/ca-cn/james-cagney/

https://www.tcm.com/articles/021761/wb100-james-cagney

https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Cagney

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/ or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish