The Bride Came C.O.D.

The Bride Came C.O.D. (William Keighley, 1941) Supposedly, the idea was that Cagney wanted to do something lighter than his typical tough-guy gangster act, brought in his brother to produce, hired the sharp twins-writing team of Julius and Philip Epstein and started casting about for the romantic lead to play opposite him. Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers, Rosalind Russell, and Olivia de Havilland were all in the mix at some point. But, somehow, Bette Davis got the part. Evidently, she wanted a change of pace from her dramatic roles and she and Cagney got on famously making Jimmy the Gent seven years earlier, so...why not?

 

But, did anybody consider the trouble that might come from putting the two biggest rabble-rousers on the Warner lot starring together in the same movie? One or two of the studio brothers might have been asleep at the switch, but the film did get made with neither of the stars being "suspended" but up-staged by some of the wiliest character actors ever in supporting roles.

The story is alarmingly close to Capra's It Happened One Night: A socialite, Joan Winfield (Davis) is sand-bagged with a marriage proposal in front of a night-club audience by her bandleader boyfriend, Allan Brice (Jack Carson), who is prodded into making the announcement by gossip columnist (Stuart Erwin) under deadline. Under pressure, she agrees, but California having a 72 hour waiting period before they can get hitched creates a problem. It's decided—by the scandal-monger—that they can fly to Vegas to tie the knot sooner. When her father (the booming Eugene Pallette) finds out he's apoplectic; he doesn't want the wedding to go through at all!

That's where cash-strapped pilot Steve Collins (Cagney) makes a landing in this mess. He's about to have his plane repo'd, but makes a deal with "Pater" Lucius K. Winfield to make a unscheduled stop from Las Vegas to Amarillo, Texas (where the father will pick her up), but with Joan only and it's been negotiated for his standard freight rate—$10 a pound. When the wedding party shows up at the local air-strip, the bridegroom-to-be and the mouth-piece are coaxed off the plane by Collins' mechanic Pee Wee (George Tobias, remembered best as neighbor Mr. Kravitz on the "Bewitched" TV series) and the pilot takes off with the prospective bride much to her protest. Technically, it's kidnapping, even if it's for hire.

But, Joan is a fierce fighter and once she gets ahold of a parachute, she'd determined to jump out of the plane en route, foiled by Collins banking the plane and throwing her—repeatedly—back into the cabin. But, all that maneuvering causes the plane to stall, and they end up crashing in the desert, close to the ghost-town of Bonanza that had sprung up around the old Enterprise mine. Hilarity ensues. The comedy is broad, bordering on slapstick, what with prat-falls and Joan constantly falling into cactus plants ("Oh, there must be something magnetic to a cactus that attracts me right to it...or vice versa!"). And Davis plays it broadly, trying to eke out the last drop of humor from any given situation...while Cagney just reacts to what she's doing, with either exaggerated laughter or venom.

In Bonanza, things get more complicated, what with search-parties looking for the pair under the command of William Frawley, and the town's only existing citizen (Harry Davenport) a mass of eccentricities and a way of changing sides at the drop of a plot-point. Soon, Collins is in jail, Joan goes on a wild desert ride in a flivver, and both end up lost in that abandoned mine, all the while waiting for either the fiancee or the father or both to show up before anything can get resolved. Cagney's character remains a bit stalwart, but Davis' changes her mind every ten minutes of movie-time. Things are further confounded with the minutiae of state law, matrimonial provisions, and some dubious reverse psychology. If everything was under federal law things would be a lot simpler, but the plot wouldn't go anywhere. State laws are funnier and more suited for comedy.

The movie was popular when it came out, and, as something changes every few minutes, one can see why audiences found it entertaining. And while Davis is out of her element, she is amusing, and Cagney doesn't fall easy victim to caricature until his laughing scenes. The only one who really disliked the film, in fact, was Davis, who didn't like the script, hated the desert heat of Death Valley, and was no fan of cactus, as she evidently did fall into one while filming. It's a light-weight vehicle pushed by two powerful steam-engines, so it's a bit of a mismatch. But, seeing the two play off each other rather seamlessly is the film's greatest strengths.

Short Cut To Hell

Short Cut To Hell (James Cagney, 1957) No, I didn't make a mistake. This film was directed by James Cagney—the only one where he took on those duties—he'd previously only acted and produced—and only as a favor (along with some curiosity whether he could do it) to his producer-friend A.C. Lyles. It sources from the novel "A Gun for Sale" written by Graham Greene (and made into the Veronica Lake-Robert Preston film, This Gun for Hire, which had made a star out of Alan Ladd). At this point in his career, the only aspirations Cagney had were probably retirement to his farm, although he would not do so until 1962, following the completion of One, Two, Three for Billy Wilder.

 

Still, it's Cagney, with his rich history of acting in the Warner Brothers hey-day and for such directors as Hawks, Walsh, Wellman, and Ford. He had seen what worked in movies and what didn't, and he was pretty good at getting the most out of a script, and bending it if he had to. What tricks of the trade could that most adept and able of actors bring to the director's chair?

"Learn your lines ... plant your feet ... look the other actor in the eye ... say the words ... mean them."

Yvette Vickers planting her feet.

The first five minutes has no dialogue except for one line—"Let me GO, you skinny little runt!"—as the curious daughter (Yvette Vickers) of a land-lord conspires to enter the room of a mystery-man (Robert Ivers) with an idea to seduce, or, if it goes wrong, make trouble. But, when she harasses the guy's cat, he man-handles her out of the room, soothes the kitty, then gets ready for work. Hat, coat, gat, and take a towel. Then go out and gun down a functionary at the Oakland City Engineering Department—and just to be thorough his secretary—in cold blood. Seems the newly stiff is—or was—an inspector wanting to prosecute Imperial Contractors (known as "The Organization" in the parlance of the shady) for its faulty building practices which have lead to the collapse of a downtown building. The killer pockets his gun, lifts the appropriate files and leaves. It's the job, and he's good at it. What's the towel for? It makes a good make-shift silencer.

But, any job involves paper-work; he has to be paid...in cash. He meets the florid Imperial middle man, Bahrwell (Jacques Aubuchon)—his substantial middle owing to his love for peppermint patties and the obsequiousness he displays may be due to a cushy life. At the meeting, the hired gun, Kyle Niles, accepts the money—conveniently in new 20's and 50's—and makes it clear to his verbose fellow-diner that if there are any issues, or any double-cross, he will handle the revenge work himself, gratis, starting with him.

But, what the hired gun doesn't know is the money didn't come from the bank as Bahrwell had claimed, but came from the Imperial payroll in a sham robbery already reported to the police. Once the serial numbers of the bills start showing up, they'll be able to trace it back to the City Hall Murderer, and it's not too soon before the police start nosing around his apartment. Knowing the cops will be staked out at the airport, he decides to take a train out of town to L.A.

Except for one complication—the cops are there, too. Not on a stake-out, but more informally, as the guy in charge of looking for Niles—Sgt. Stan Lowery (William Bishop) is seeing his steady girl, singer Glory Hamilton (Georgann Johnson) off to L.A. for her new gig at an only somewhat reputable club. After all, Bahrwell goes there as a regular. And it's only because of the lousy scheduling of the Oakland-L.A. line (perhaps) that Glory, Bahrwell, and a town-skipping Niles happen to be on the same train...in conveniently adjoining coaches, all the better for Bahrwell to see them and assume that the gun-man and Glory are in some sort of cahoots.

So, innocent Glory gets intertwined in the death-struggle between Bahrwell, Bahrwell's boss at Imperial (the untraceably named "AT"—played by Richard Hale, who was Boo Radley's father in To Kill a Mockingbird: "the meanest man to ever take a breath of life"), and the bullet-headed assassin they hired together. It doesn't get pretty, with the film's screenwriter's and Cagney just suggesting the crueler aspects of all three men.

So...how is it? Anybody who knows me knows that I think the sun rises and sets on Cagney—that he was, if not the best, one of the best TWO screen actors to be captured on film. And I'd been wanting to see this a long time. And, so I can safely tell you...it's pretty lousy, almost amateurish. Blame it on the budget, sure. But, one has to be honest and say that Cagney is no auteur taking care of details. At one point, Bahrwell is reading a newspaper about the City Engineering killings in big bold headlines, but when he folds the paper, you can't help but notice that the rest of the paper is blank. That's the sort of detail you notice, even in the scruffy non-Vistavision-for-black-and-white-TV version that I saw. One suspects Cagney of toughening things up a bit, taking things right to the edge, but he never crosses the line to true sordidness.

And Cagney knew what to do with scripts, so how does he allow such thudding dialogue like "Not with your boy-friend chasing me; you're my insurance—my life insurance!" Or this exchange: "You're gentle." "Yeah, c'mon, let's go." And there's an admirable directness that just unfortunately crosses into camp when Kyle confronts the villainous AT: "I don't take orders, young man! I GIVE 'em!" BANG! Not even a sneering "My order is you fall down and die!"

And (okay) the greatest actor of the screen can't seem to inspire good performances out of his cast: Aubuchon is so obsequious he could be a cartoon, Bishop was meant to be the fourth lead in a serial, and Robert Ivers is such a mis-fire as Kyle that you wonder what inspired his casting—looking for an unknown who could be the next Alan Ladd by way of James Dean and Richard Widmark? Oh, he's good at the sarcasm, and he's a good mover/runner, if of the "flopping around" variety. But, the menace is all rather "weaselly" and of the "see? I'm tough" school, rather than "I'm so tough I don't have to play it" variety. You don't worry that he'll get shot; you worry he's going to catch a cold.

The only good performance is from Johnson, a utility player of just about every television show ever made and a main-stay of the soap "Somerset" (and others of their ilk—geez, she even played a Starfleet Admiral!). She sells her lines and her emotions with a committed earnestness that can best be described as "110%"—even if nobody else is giving her anything to work with—a slightly less-restrained version of Doris Day, with a touch less theatricality. She's plucky, even managing to make you believe this character would have the moxie she displays in the most unbelievable of circumstances. Cagney probably liked her a lot.

But, he didn't like the experience. Shortcut to Hell is the only movie Cagney ever directed, and his assessment of it was typically frank and has the ring of truth and honesty to them that he brought to his roles: "We shot it in twenty days, and that was long enough for me. I find directing a bore, I have no desire to tell other people their business."

 

I was enough for him to be good at his own job.

Mister Roberts

Mister Roberts (John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan, 1955) Hollywood wanted to make a movie of the hit Broadway play that was a sensation for Henry Fonda, and Fonda wanted to make it—a labor of love. But, the studios thought Fonda (just shy of 50 years of age) might be a little too old for the lead, like twice the age he should be (they were thinking of Marlon Brando or William Holden). And then, there was an issue with the property—it was a bit too critical of the Navy and cast it in a less than inspiring light. The Admiralty-that-be was reluctant to grant its cooperation or to lend any of its ships or facilities to lend the film any verisimilitude as long as the film was anything less than respectful.

Enter John Ford. Ford had served in the Navy during World War II. He was a "friend" in Hollywood to the military and his captaincy of the production reassured the Navy brass that attitudes wouldn't get out of hand (and the uniforms would be correct). Ford would take care of the Navy.

As for Warner Brothers, Ford insisted that Henry Fonda—and nobody but Henry Fonda—would star in Mister Roberts. This put Warners in a bind. They couldn't make Mister Roberts without John Ford and John Ford wouldn't make Mister Roberts with anybody else in the lead. To compensate for Fonda's age, Ford cast older actors in key roles—James Cagney and William Powell—as well as members of his "stock company"—Ward Bond, Harry Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis and Patrick Wayne. All was set in place for a good shoot of a stage classic.

And then, things got messy. When Ford met Cagney at the airport, he greeted him with a snarling threat that they would "tangle asses." Cagney showed up a bit late the first day of shooting and Ford was ready to lay into him. Cagney had worked with the director before—the remake of What Price Glory in 1953—and knew he could be a tyrant on-set, and told Ford he was ready to fight and make good on his threat at the airport. Ford backed down. He knew he would get a fight from Cagney, but he threw his way of belittling actors onto Powell, which infuriated Cagney. "I would have kicked his brains out." said Cagney to his biographer, Doug Warren. "He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man."

Then, Ford began to drink on-set. His command of the production was being challenged and he didn't like it. When he'd had a little too much, he would let Ward Bond oversee a shot. Early on, Henry Fonda, who'd won a Tony Award for Best Actor in the stage version, was unhappy with the script, and started to feel that Ford was indulging in too much slap-stick into a project that was a personal mission. A "clearing-the-air" meeting between producer Leland Hayward, Fonda and Ford escalated to the point where the director punched his star in the face. There was an apology, but the relationship between the two (they'd made pictures together) was forever fractured.

The movie, set during the last days of the second world war, tells the story of Lt. Doug Roberts (Fonda), stationed aboard the U.S.S. Reluctant (nicknamed "The Bucket" by the crew). A Navy cargo ship, it sails between harbors shipping supplies on time and efficiently thanks to Roberts' efforts as executive officer/cargo chief, a fact not lost on the ship's commander Lt. Commander Morton (Cagney), a badgering weasel of a man who enjoys the perks and accolades that their record entitles him to. The ship's crew is not much, but are loyal to Roberts, who acts as a buffer between the men and Morton.

But, Roberts is dissatisfied—he didn't join the Navy to shuttle supplies between "backwater" stations and currying favor with port commanders—he joined to fight for his country and persistently puts in for transfers to other ships in action, attempts Morton constantly sabotages to keep Roberts under his command—so he can enjoy the rewards of Roberts good efforts. For Morton, there is an added bonus—after a lifetime of being looked down upon in menial jobs, he gets to "dish it out" to the "smart college boy" Roberts. In order to get the men a much-needed liberty, Roberts promises Morton that he won't request any more transfers—the repeated pleas are making Morton look bad. But, when the men's activities get Morton a reprimand, he doubles down on Roberts and the crew, implying that Roberts has turned against them for a promotion. It proves too much for Roberts, who takes decisive action.

One can see parallels between what was happening in front of the camera and behind-the-scenes. A frustrated star, who was never satisfied with the film as compared to the stage version. A director who kept control over his productions through abuse. A supporting cast that soldiered on, despite the turmoil on-set—it would be Powell's last film, Cagney's last for Warner Brothers, and the launching of Jack Lemmon's career with a performance that won him an Academy Award for his horny, puppy-dumb Ensign Pulver.

Ford eventually was shipped out to Hawaii to dry out, then came a gall-bladder attack, necessitating a replacement by LeRoy, who screened Ford's footage and tried to shoot it the way Ford had, but LeRoy's appreciation of light isn't there. Once LeRoy had finished, Hayward and Fonda got the play's director, Joshua Logan, to re-shoot many of the scenes (probably a lot of the interiors). The result is a mixed bag of some breath-taking images, flat attempts to reproduce them, and rather perfunctory interiors that play like they're from another movie—you can tell the Logan scenes because nobody's sweating in them.

Take a look at this sequence of shots—all from the penultimate scene of the film. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to say that the top shot of Lemmon—an exterior shot—is by Ford, and the two below it, are by LeRoy—interiors intended to look like exteriors and with the same actors in the same positions, but not as natural and somewhat stiffly arranged.

And Logan—here are some interior shots, with their vast expanses of unused screen space, and everything just a little too neat and tidy, the decks recently swabbed, and just a little too orderly to be believed they'd been lived in. While not exactly a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, the shift in presentation does get under one's skin and undermines one's appreciation. Mister Roberts was not the sensation it was intended to be—not as realistic, not as salty, not as controversial, and a far cry from the initial intention of author Thomas Heggen in both book and play. Fonda basically disowned it.

And what of Ford? He would take a couple months away from features to do a couple television films, and returned to Warner Brothers with one of his best—and some would say his greatest film—1956's The Searchers.

These Wilder Years

These Wilder Years (Roy Rowland, 1956) James Cagney plays Steve Bradford, an executive who, for once, takes time off for himself to take care of some unfinished business. He leaves his board of directors in charge and makes it known that if there's an emergency, he can't be reached and somebody else will have to handle it. He's got important business of his own. He doesn't know long it will take, but until it's taken care of, he can't be reached.

He goes back to his hometown and seeks out an orphanage run by Ann Dempster (Barbara Stanwyck), whom he he had contacted previously. She repeats that what he is asking for is quite impossible—she cannot give out the information he seeks. There are rules. That's not the kind of answer Bradford like to hear. He's a captain of industry, a Master of the Universe. He's used to getting what he wants, and if he can't get it one way, he'll find another way to do it—the ends justify the means.

What he's looking for is his son, given up for adoption twenty years previously when he was less successful and less capable of the responsibility. Now, he wants to make amends and be the father he never thought he could be in the past. 

The film was made in 1957 and the subject of unwed mothers was something that was rarely discussed, let alone put on movie screens. If it was, it was slapped with a "Not recommended for General Audiences" label (the kiddies would have to wait for the rating system 11 years in the future). But, this movie had the social conscience—and the business-savvy knowing that the story would never be shown on people's new television sets (where Lucy and Desi had to sleep in separate beds on "I Love Lucy").

So, it makes for an interesting subject to see in a movie from that era; they're not very clinical about it, and don't even use the terms "pregnant" or "unwed mother," and emphasize that these are young girls in a fix and someone has to deal with it and protect all the parties involved. The young men involved in the process are never mentioned—perhaps because you'd have to mention sex—and the only evidence that this might be a shared responsibility is in the character of Bradford who owns up to it twenty years too late.

The reason I was drawn to These Wilder Years was to see old pro's like James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck playing off each other—in the only time in their careers. The two are a couple of my favorite thesp's and they are not sentimental in their portrayals, playing subtle combatants over the information Cagney's Bradford wants. Bradford is so single-minded and so used to getting his own way that he takes legal action against the orphanage to get what he wants, using his company lawyer Rayburn (Walter Pidgeon, playing with a cynical practicality) to sue Dempster in order to release the information to him...and presumably every other prodigal father.

Stanwyck has the more sympathetic role here, and she plays it with a functionary's stern patience. And Cagney, as always, is a revelation. He has a scene where, quite to his surprise, he finds what he's looking for, and his reactions are a study in complexity, going from realization to surprise to fear to shame to regret without pause or revealing of technique. There's no acting, but considered reacting. It's another example—in a long-running career—of why Cagney is considered THE actor's actor and an artist of the highest caliber.

White Heat (1949)

White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) Did a podcast for the Large Association of Movie Blogs the other night with MovieRob—he's in charge of the "Acting School 101" segment, where they focus on a particular actor for the month (there's also a "Directing School 101") and the contributors post links to relevant posts they've made. This month's Acting 101 subject if James Francis Cagney (which is why you've seen seemingly irrelevant Cagney posts lately—I'm cleaning out the attic of the old blog I wrote and bringing them over here) and we had a rollicking discussion—I could've gone another couple hours on the subject, it was so much fun. But, my No. 1 pick of Cagney performances (Rob's was Yankee Doodle Dandy, a great choice) was White Heat, which Rob had never seen. "Ro-o-o-b," I bleated in my best Mary Tyler Moore imitation. "You've GOT to see White Heat!"

Everybody should. It's a late-forties return to form with Cagney in gangster mode...but with a big difference. Cagney's early gangsters were opportunists, falling through the cracks of bad economics and bad situations to eke out a living by the easiest way possible—crime.

But not White Heat's Cody Jarrett. When Cagney returned to Warner Brothers Studio to do it, he read the script, recognized the form but found it a little formulaic and, thus, dull. Cagney had a suggestion: "Let's make him nuts," and the script was altered and Cagney's criminal thus had no justifying excuses—Jarrett is psychologically damaged ("like his old man" says a gang-member)—all id, with no ego or conscience to curtail it. He's mother-fixated, greedy, jealous, and subject to debilitating headaches ("like a buzz-saw in my skull," he describes it). Whether it's caused by blood pressure, stress, PTSD, or just bad humours, he's due for a stroke if he doesn't curtail it. But, before he does, he's going to take out as much as he can, monetarily or in collateral damage. "Top of the world, ma" he toasts his mother in a perverse version of The American Dream. "Top of the world."

Jarrett's gang goes in for The Big Scores, robbing trains, pilfering payrolls, stuff that involves high risk with high rewards (except for those who succumb to the high risks). When the job's done, the gang splits up, finds a hide-out to lay low, with Mom Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) in tow to monitor police efforts and plan the next heist. But, not for too long, as Jarrett gets antsy and the headaches start. Plus, there's Cody's wife Verna (Virginia Mayo) who loves the spoils, but not having Ma breathing down her neck and nagging. Jarrett keeps her under a watchful eye and a short leash, because he's just as suspicious of her as he is of weasels in his gang like "Big Ed" (Steve Cochran), who Jarrett knows would love to take over the Jarrett game and serve divorce papers to him from the barrel of a gun.

All that time keeping his enemies close also makes him a little myopic. After a train-heist that scalds one of the gang-members, Jarrett orders the mug shot rather than have to carry around a guy wrapped like a mummy everywhere.  But, the chosen executioner has a soft heart, he leaves the stricken thief alive, but only for so long. Police find the man, finally dead of his injuries, and do some forensics. It leads to a stake-out that traps Jarrett, Ma, and Verna, but Jarrett shoots chief investigator Philip Evans (John Archer) and starts a reckless police chase that ends, when Cody pulls into a drive-in.

But, Jarrett has an idea; at the same time he was pulling the train job out West, he knows a hotel job that was going down in Illinois by an acquaintance in crime, who has gone to ground. Jarrett is going to go to Chicago and turn himself in for the hotel robbery. He'll go to prison for two years, but not to the gas chamber for the deadly train robbery, and, when he gets out, he's got a lot of loot stashed. He leaves Ma in charge, and Verna stewing.

But, the Treasury Agents have a plan. They agree to Jarrett's light sentence—they don't kick at all—and they bring in "undercover specialist" Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien), who's just finished another long stretch in prison...posing as a con to get information, you understand. His job is to get close to Jarrett, find out what he can, what he did with the train job loot, and find the name of the mysterious planner who's been giving Jarrett his big ideas. Oh, and stay alive in a federal pen with a bunch of cut-throats.

That's the movie's set-up, and things, as they should, get complicated, but except for big issues like Life and Death, the details don't amount to much. What matters is Jarrett's reaction to them and Cagney's performance is the entire key to it. One hesitates to call it a "one-man" show (O'Brien is properly stalwart and Mayo and Wycherly do wonderful, vaguely comic work), but Cagney so dominates an audience's attention and challenges it, that the details seem to disappear.

Cagney's advice to actors was to "plant your feet and tell the truth," even though he was the most theatrical of performers. You believe him and what the character is going through. White Heat proved one thing—there's no over-the-top with Cagney; even the scenes where his crazy behavior scares the crap out of you, what he does feel genuine and, for all the hyper-emoting, and occasional jibbering, authentic. One also cannot argue with the visceral way he throws a punch.

The extremes of behavior of the Jarrett character would make any death scene a little disappointing, and so, director Walsh stages the most hysterically dramatic death for a character in the movies (short of Godzilla, anyway). It's almost supernatural in its implications, and as much as supporting characters are given lines to tone it down and bring it down to Earth a bit, it doesn't douse the ecstasy that comes out of Cagney as he shrieks his send-off line. It is spectacular, but more than that, it feels apt and right, because of the bigness of the portrayal. Cagney makes you realize that you just can't kill a creature like Cody Jarrett. You have to atomize him. And in a post-Hiroshima era, that takes a lot of will to not have qualms about it. 

And the scary thing is; Jarrett wants it, relishes it, and even helps it along. He feels he's earned it.

But, it's Cagney's performance that justifies so grand and volcanic an exit. And it's too intense and good to leave you wanting more.