Wednesday, July 29, 2009
HOT AS A PISTOL
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Raoul Walsh'
with James Cagney, Edmund Obrien and Virginia Mayo.
It is a late career triumph for Cagney who had been typecast long ago and had quit fighting it. But he got interested in this one and made Cody Jarrett one of the nastiest screen villains anyone had seen before or since.
The product of a domineering mother and an absent (insane asylum) father, Jarrett has two choices. Be a stereotypical gay (just kidding) or be terribly fucked up. He chose "fucked up" since there weren't any gays back then. Migraines. Psychotic attacks.
Cagney pulls all the stops out and it is not over the top. He makes it all fit.
I saw this film when I was 12 years old and remembered the end scene as well as a few others.
Walsh, the director, had a lifetime of making great pictures out of meager resources. The would be B pic squeezed into a great A film.
This is noir. Gangster noir. Very violent for its time. And for a 12 year old kid. I wasn't ruined from seeing it.
I have seen it a few times and have enjoyed the pyrotechnics each time. There is great support from all the actors in this film and the quality of the photography is very high.
The last scene is famous. It is much shorter than I remember it as a kid. Or when I think about the film at all. It gets longer in memory. Good movies do that.
I will see it again, I bet.
I will rate it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
