The Roaring Twenties

Speak Easy And
Carry A Big Stick

The Roaring Twenties
USA 1939 Directed by Raoul Walsh
Warner Brothers
Criterion Blu Ray Zone B
Spine Number 1208

“He used to be a big shot.”
Gladys George in The Roaring Twenties.

Take a quick glimpse at my all time favourite movies list on the right of this blog and you’ll notice that The Roaring Twenties is not on there (as are a few other ommissions such as Wonder Woman, I need to update that thing). This is a surprise even to me because, during my teenage years and early twenties, I used to watch this movie a good number of times every year. It was one of my all time favourites and I don’t know how I managed to let it slip off that list. Maybe because I haven’t now revisited it in over thirty years but, here I am now watching it again in a wonderful restored version on The Criterion Collection, no less.

Now, regular readers of my blog may remember that I’m definitely not a fan of gangster movies... they always remind me of the hoodlums and thugs encountered in life at school as a kid so, most of them punch too close to home for me. But I always make an exception for The Roaring Twenties because, frankly, it’s director Raoul Walsh’s masterpiece and easily one of the greatest pieces of art in American cinema.

The film tells the story of Eddie Bartlett, played by James Cagney in what would be his last gangster role for ten years (when he returned to the genre for the director’s also excellent gangster picture White Heat). The film opens towards the end of the first world war, where Bartlett is pals with George, played by Humphrey Bogart at his most villainous... and young lawyer Lloyd, played by Jeffrey Lynn. It says everything about Eddie’s two friends when Lloyd has a German soldier in his sights and then lowers his rifle because the kid looks like he could be no more than 15 years of age. George promptly shoots the kid dead, declaring “He won’t be 16!”. Its at this moment they find out the war is over and the armistice has been signed.

So the three go their separate ways and, after briefly meeting his love interest for the movie, Jean, played by Priscilla Lane (who goes on to hook up with both Eddie and Lloyd in a bizarre, post Hays Code love triangle)... well, like many returning ‘heroes’ of The Great War, Eddie finds his old job as a mechanic gone and with nowhere to go except to stay with his best friend, taxi driver Danny (played wonderfully well by Cagney’s good friend Frank McHugh). Danny and Eddie share shifts on the cab Danny owns but a new opportunity awaits them at the beginning of prohibition in 1920 and the film’s other leading lady, Panama Smith, played by the wonderful Gladys George, helps get Eddie into the bootlegging business. This is something Lloyd helps with, acquiring taxi cabs as a distribution system for Eddie, who becomes a huge kingpin of prohibition bootlegging.

Then, when Eddie and his gang are disguised as coastguards and intercepting a delivery meant for another gang boss, he hooks up with George again who joins his outfit. Shenanigans ensue as the two downward spiral into a world of crime and violence at a time when the average American public saw the bootleggers as the romantic adventurers supplying them with underground alcohol at the time of an immensely unpopular law.

And at this point, we get to the two things which finish Eddie and his empire off for good and turn him into a broken down, broken hearted (after he finds out about Jean and Lloyd), struggling taxi driver once more. The Wall Street Crash of 1929, followed by the end of prohibition in 1933. Eddie sells out his business to George, who leaves him just the one cab for old times sake. Then, a little later, George is in the hot seat from a prosecution by legal eagle Lloyd and, George decides Lloyd needs shutting up for good, even though he’s married to Jean and has a four year old son. At this point, the demolished man that was Eddie Bartlett steps in once more to... well, I won’t spoil the ending for you but it’s emotional and also features one of the most haunting last lines of any movie committed to celluloid.

If you’ve not seen The Roaring Twenties, you probably won’t understand why I tend to tear up slightly whenever I hear somebody sing Melancholy Baby but, yeah it gets me every time and you really should take a look at this if film is your thing. The crisp, black and white photography (brought out a treat by the latest Criterion edition), the powerful acting performances* (especially from James Cagney and Gladys George, who should both have got Oscars for this thing), the epic scope of the picture and the amazing, historic montage sequences (edited by a young Don Siegel, no less) all make for what... well, I’ll say it again... it’s an absolute masterpiece of cinema and you need to see this one. Absolute brilliance at all levels at a time when the Breen Office required a lot of changes to the original script but, what is implied rather than obviously made implicit here is, in some ways, even more effective. An absolute stand out... as close to a perfect movie as you can get, I would say. Add this to your shelves or watch list for sure.

*And spare a thought for those old actors before explosive squibs were used in films sometime in the 1940s and onward. When you see a bullet land inches from an actor to hit a brick wall by his or her face... or see a couple of windows shot out behind where said actor is running, as you often do, remember these ‘effects’ were done with live ammo! Sharpshooters off set would be firing where the actors weren’t and, if the actor didn’t hit their mark... well, the incentive to get the shots and the actors to make sure they were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there was pretty strong, alright.