- White Heat
The latest film in Jonathan Rosenbaum’s ongoing “Unquiet American: Transgressive Comedies from the U.S.” series is Blonde Crazy, a 1931 pre-Code comedy directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring James Cagney that comes recommended by J.R. Jones. Cagney appeared in Blonde Crazy shortly before his famous turn in The Public Enemy, the film that essentially kick-started his reputation for playing wild, petulant gangster figures. But if the Del Ruth film had been a bigger hit, it’s possible the actor could have taken more comedic roles during his career. With one of the most distinctive and flexible faces in cinema history, Cagney excelled in his gangster roles, communicating his characters’ inner turmoil with his narrowed brow, thin lips, and wild eyes. Such a skill set is equally required in comedy, where wild expressiveness and over-the-top emotion are tenets of the genre. Indeed, his most rowdy and blistering performances are often just a hair away from being anarchically comic, something his diminutive physical frame had a lot to do with. He was a versatile performer with considerable range, able to elevate subpar material via his presence alone. (He single-handedly makes Nicholas Ray’s Run for Cover and Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy, a pair of would-be disasters, watchable.) You can see my five favorite Cagney performances below.
- Blood on the Sun (dir. Frank Lloyd, 1945) The second film financed by the actor’s own production company, this spy drama is itself fairly suspect in its dealings with the history of Japanese militarism and the steady build to Pearl Harbor, but Cagney is in rare form, given free reign by director Frank Lloyd. As such, the film is tough, explosive, and brazenly melodramatic, and it owes much if not all of its success to Cagney, who was so impassioned by the project that he insisted on doing his own stunts, including some surprisingly physical judo fight scenes.
