My Take:

1939 was a banner year for movies. The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington… the best picture nominees from that year were all indelible classics. One film that gets lost in the shuffle is The Roaring Twenties. I was engaged from the start, mainly due to James Cagney, he has an aura about him that you just can’t ignore. Set mostly during the prohibition years, the story follows Eddie as he leaves WWI and can’t find a decent job anywhere, until prohibition hits, and then he’s running liquor. The movie does cross the famous Black Friday stock market crash in 1929, so the situation starts to dry up for old Eddie. A rise and fall theme, that’s totally engrossing.

Cagney loved to shove objects in people’s faces; the most famous being the cantaloupe in Mae Clarke’s kisser from “Public Enemy,” and he continues that theme here. Cagney also hits a lot of folks in this film, but have you ever noticed how he tucks his thumb underneath his fingers when doing so? That is not a proper technique.

What I Liked:

At two hours, the movie moved quickly, it didn’t linger anywhere, the pacing was ahead of its time.

What I Didn’t Like:

Seeing Bogart scared, that scared me.

What I Learned:

How to make bathtub gin