{"id":162288,"date":"2025-07-17T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162288"},"modified":"2025-07-16T19:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T23:43:11","slug":"james-cagney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162288","title":{"rendered":"“I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don’t-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.\u201d — James Cagney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nIt’s his birthday today. One of my favorite actors. <\/p>\n

From Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Peter Bogdanovich:<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was different from most of the great stars of the golden age in that he often played villains \u2014 even late in his career \u2014 comically in Mister Roberts<\/em>, with unsentimental pathos in Love Me or Leave Me<\/em>, with complicated and disturbing psychopathic ambivalence in White Heat<\/em>. His essential persona was as fixed in the public\u2019s consciousness as Bogart\u2019s or Cooper\u2019s or Gable\u2019s but \u2014 being a more resourceful and versatile actor \u2014 he could express ambiguities in a character even if they weren\u2019t written into the script or featured by the direction. Because he was innately so sympathetic, his heavies created an intriguing, even alarming, tension in the audience. As a result, White Heat<\/em>, as an example, contains a decidedly subversive duality: in the glare of Cagney\u2019s personality \u2014 though his character is in no way sentimentalized \u2014 the advanced, somewhat inhuman technology of the police and the undercover-informer cop become morally reprehensible. As a result, I remember [Orson] Welles and I hissing the law and rooting for Cagney like schoolboys. That rarest of actors \u2014 who could totally transcend their vehicles \u2014 and in common with a number of other stars in the movies\u2019 greatest period, he was indisputably one of a kind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nMy friend Dan Callahan, over the last couple of years, wrote two books, and I interviewed him about them both: The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960<\/a><\/i> and The Art of American Screen Acting 1960 to Today<\/a>\"\"<\/em>. (For your consideration, here are the two interviews: on Volume One<\/a> and on Volume Two<\/a>. In Volume One, Dan devotes a chapter to James Cagney, and it is revelatory reading, even for someone like myself, who is a giant fan. Dan picks up on things – or, at least verbalizes them – in ways I hadn’t put into words. <\/p>\n

Excerpt from The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960<\/a><\/i>: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Cagney is the first major male talking<\/i> picture star. He moved beautifully, and he could have pranced and crawled and excelled in silent movies as well (he made an empathetic success playing Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces<\/i> [1957]). But talking is what he does best, rat-a-tat-tat like gunfire, faster sometimes than bullets. He played gangsters and tabloid reporters and con men who looked down on “book learning” as just another racket. He stood for the low-down side of life, and the world was his personal playground, a stage where he could trip down the stairs or dance out a door. Proudly born in the gutter and hyper-alert, his characters seemed to feel more sensations per minute than some people feel their whole lives, and Cagney offered that alertness to us as a goad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nExcerpt from The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960<\/a><\/i>: <\/strong><\/p>\n

When Blondell tries to kiss him towards the end of Blonde Crazy<\/i> and Cagney just closes his eyes and tries to avoid all the emotion this gesture brings up in him, we are seeing a man who has mastered his expression of feelings in order to express the uncontrollable feelings in the character he is playing. Look at the way he tenderly grabs on to the fur trim on Blondell’s coat in the last scene and see the far more empathetic precursor to Brando’s supposedly groundbreaking interactions with women in the early 1950s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking of Joan Blondell, she and Cagney came up together, through vaudeville, and then arriving at Warner Brothers at the same time. They did maybe 10 movies together? 11? They’re so similar, they’re so so good together. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nShe got her start making a series of movies with James Cagney, crazy movies, fun movies, and they are terrific together. Kindred spirits. There are moments where they almost look the same. They’re the same height, same coloring, they play off each other beautifully. They get a real kick out of each other’s presence and it reads onscreen.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Excerpt from The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960<\/a><\/i>: <\/strong><\/p>\n

All of his early 1930s performances are jam-packed with grace notes and jolts of pleasure. He moved faster and thought faster than anybody else, and he wasn’t afraid of following his most daring instincts for fun. Look at the way he picks up Blondell’s underwear in Blonde Crazy<\/i>, holding it against himself and becoming a hot girl for a couple of seconds, his unabashed femininity completing and sealing his greatness as a performer. Look at the semi-alarmed but intrigued way he reacts to a gay tailor measuring him for clothes in The Public Enemy<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\nExcerpt from The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960<\/a><\/i>: <\/strong><\/p>\n

His best director of this time was Raoul Walsh, who brought out a rare delicacy and shy decency in Cagney in The Strawberry Blonde<\/i> (1941), where his outer energy, humor, and toughness is balanced by a sense of restrained grievance and loss. Walsh also gave Cagney ample room to be the psychotic Cody Jarrett in White Heat<\/i> (1949), a tough guy who is so in love with his mother that he sounds like an animal caught in a trap when he is told of her death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

More on that famous scene in White Heat<\/i>, one of his most extraordinary moments as an actor: <\/p>\n

Legend has it that although, of course the scene was planned and it was written that Cody flips out at getting the news, nobody \u2013 probably including Cagney \u2013 knew exactly how it would go. You\u2019re only going to do the scene once, probably, and so you have to be ready for it. (This reminds me of Sally Fields\u2019 memory of filming the scene in Norma Rae<\/em> where Norma Rae is dragged out of the factory by the cops. The only thing director Martin Ritt said to her was, \u201cDo not \u2013 under any circumstances \u2013 let the cops put you into that car.\u201d But of course the scene required her to be put into the car. No matter. Martin Ritt\u2019s gentle reminder of her objective as a character upped the stakes for Fields in playing it.)<\/p>\n

So Cagney wanted to make sure the cameras kept rolling no matter what, because on some level he knew where he was going to go emotionally, and he knew it was going to be unpredictable and enormous. Cagney knew his “instrument” and its openness, understood what was required and knew he needed to be free to \u201cgo there\u201d. In Cagney on Cagney<\/i>, Cagney spoke of that scene: <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have to psych myself up for the scene in which I go berserk on learning of my mother\u2019s death. You don\u2019t psych yourself up for those things. You do them. I knew what deranged people sounded like. As a youngster I had visited Ward\u2019s Island. A pal\u2019s 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 \u2018psych up.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the scene, Cody sits in the cafeteria, and he gets the news. There\u2019s a stunned disoriented moment. Then the event starts. Cagney’s astonishing reaction goes from disbelief through sorrow, grief, and finally, complete hysteria \u2014 and it is among the most chilling sequences in movies. There is no limit to where it is going to go because there is no limit to where Cagney can go. Cagney is truly awe-inspiring. Watch, in particular, the actors around him. And before they shot the scene, Cagney said to Raoul Walsh: “Just follow me.” <\/p>\n

He knew. <\/p>\n

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