Stubs - The First Auto

The First Auto (1927) starring Barney Oldfield, Patsy Ruth Miller, Charles Emmett Mack, Russell Simpson. Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Anthony Coldeway, Jack Jarmuth. Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. Run time: 75 minutes. Black and White. USA. Silent with sound, Drama.

Made at a time when Hollywood, specifically in this case, Warner Bros., was experimenting with synchronized sound, the beginning of the end of the silent era, the studio was making a film about the end of the horse as the main mode of transportation, The First Auto. The synchronized sound, captured on a disc synchronized with the film, included music, sound effects and a few spoken words.

Stubs - Beauty and the Boss

Beauty and The Boss (1932) Starring: Marian Marsh, David Manners, Warren William, Charles Butterworth Directed by Roy Del Ruth Screenplay by Joseph Jackson Based on the play A Templom Egere by Ladislaus Fodor (Budapest, 2 Dec 1927). Producer (None Credited). Run time: 66 minutes. USA Black and White. Pre-Code, Comedy.

Violet Ethelred Krauth had a bit of a meteoric rise in Hollywood. Her film career began in 1928 when she was only 15. While she was still attending Hollywood High, Marian had approached a silent movie actress, Nancy O’Neil, who gave her speech and movement lessons. That lead to appearances in short subjects produced by Pathé, where she used the name Marilyn Morgan.

Stubs - Captured

Captured! (1933) Starring: Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paul Lukas, Margaret Lindsay, Arthur Hohl, John Bleifer, William Le Maire Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Edward Chodorov. Based on the short story "Fellow Prisoners" by Sir Philip Gibbs in Liberty (13 Sep 1930). Produced by Hal B, Wallis. Run time: 72 minutes. US Black and White. Drama, War.

In the years before America’s involvement in World War II, a subject Hollywood still returns to, the Great War was World War I, the war to end all wars. Films like Wings (1927) and Hell’s Angels (1930), set their melodramas against the epic of the war, concentrating in both films on the early air corps that were new to the conflict.

Stubs - Employees' Entrance

Employees' Entrance (1933) Starring: Warren William, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford. Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Robert Presnell Produced by Lucien Hubbard. Run Time: 75 minutes USA Black and White Drama, Pre-code

During their heyday, the studios were cranking out product to fill their theaters; one new film a week. Films were made on an assembly line basis. Unaffected by the Production Code, the studios were also free to deal with subject matter that in a few years they would no longer be able to. These pre-code films have developed a certain mythic status as Pre-Code, which makes them sound much more salacious than they really are. While they may deal with more adult subject matter, they are still rather tame in comparison with modern films. They might deal with sex but there is no nudity or actual sex. One such film is Employee’s Entrance, a Warner Bros. film.

Stubs - Blonde Crazy

Blonde Crazy (1931) Starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Louis Calhern, Noel Francis, Ray Milland Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright. Producer: None Credited. Run Time: 78 minutes. U.S.A. Black and White. Pre-Code, Crime, Comedy, Drama

James Cagney and Joan Blondell had arrived in Hollywood together, both brought from Broadway to recreate their roles in Sinner’s Holiday (1930). Both seemed meant for stardom from almost the beginning. Warner Brothers knew what they had and would pair them in six more movies through 1934, including Other Men’s Women (1931); The Public Enemy (1931), The Crowd Roars (1932); Footlight Parade (1933); He Was Her Man (1934). But before those films, there was Blonde Crazy (1931), which would be Blondell’s first starring role. Cagney by then had become a star thanks to The Public Enemy, which had already been released on May 15^th.

Stubs – It Happened on 5th Avenue

It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947) Starring: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gail Storm Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Everett Freeman, Vick Knight, Ben Markson. Story by Herbert Clyde Lewis, Frederick Stephani. Produced by Roy Del Ruth. Run Time: 118 minutes. U.S. Black and White. Christmas, Comedy

Post World War II was a very ripe time for Christmas-themed movies in Hollywood. Perhaps fueled by the euphoria of the end to that worldwide conflict, the studios decided to turn from making war films to ones about a holiday dedicated to peace. Beginning with Christmas in Connecticut (1945) followed by such Christmas classics as It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) and ending with Holiday Affair (1949), Christmas films seemed to be everywhere. In 1947 alone, there were three perennial classics released: Miracle on 34^th Street, The Bishop’s Wife and our film, It Happened on 5th Avenue.

The story by Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani was originally optioned in 1945 by Frank Capra, who wanted it for his new company, Liberty Films. But Capra decided to make another Christmas film instead, It’s A Wonderful Life. Later that year, producer/director Roy Del Ruth then optioned the story for Allied Artists Pictures, a new division of Monogram Pictures. Known as a low-budget film studio, Monogram wanted to get into making A-Pictures and started Allied Artists Pictures. It Happened on 5th Avenue would be the higher-budget division’s debut outing.

Production began with the casting of Ann Harding and Victor Moore in June, following by the casting of Don DeFore and Gale Storm in July. Shooting took place from August 5^th to mid-October 1946. The film wasn’t released until Easter 1947.

The film opens with a tour bus going down New York City's Fifth Avenue. The tour guide announces that they are on the "richest avenue in the world," and points out that the boarded-up mansion they’re driving by belongs to "industrial wizard" Michael O'Connor, the world's second richest man.

On the tour, the mansion of the "Second richest man in the world."

After the bus passes, a middle-aged drifter, Aloysious T. McKeever (Victor Moore) and his dog Sam enter the O'Connor house through a loose board in the fence and down a manhole. Once inside, Mac, as he’s known, rigs it so that the lights and electricity go off anytime the front door is opened. He continues to make himself at home. Mac, we learn later, has been occupying the O’Connor mansion all winter (November 3^rd to March 13^th), while its owner is staying at his other mansion in Virginia.

Mac (Victor Moore) and Sam wait for the tour bus to pass before moving in.

The next day, so that O'Connor can build an eighty-story building, the residents of the apartment house currently on the land are being evicted. One tenant, Jim Bullock (Don DeFore), is not eager to be thrown out on the street. An out-of-work World War II veteran, Bullock handcuffs himself to his bed but that does not deter the workers from evicting him.

Forced to sleep on a park bench, Jim is awakened when a sprinkler attached to a hose Sam is pulling ends up under Jim. Feeling responsible, Mac, who is wearing O’Connor’s clothes, invites Jim to stay the night with him. Jim, who already has a dislike for O’Connor, is at first weary of the stranger’s invitation, but convinced he is only a friend of his evictor, accepts.

Homeless, Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) is forced to sleep in the park.

Down in Virginia, O’Connor (Charles Ruggles) has called together his board of directors to announce plans for converting an old Army post outside Manhattan, Camp Kilson, into the hub of a massive air cargo network he envisions building. He sends his assistant Farrow (Grant Mitchell) to Washington D.C. to close the deal. His meeting is interrupted by a phone call he receives from the headmistress of his daughter Trudy’s finishing school. Trudy, he’s informed, is missing, having left the school. Alarmed, O’Connor puts a network of private investigators to work looking for her.

Meanwhile, Trudy (Gail Storm) returns home, her father’s mansion, to grab a few items, including her mink coat. But Mac and Jim, thinking she’s stealing, stop her. She says she was looking for a warm coat for a job interview she has the next morning. She doesn’t let on that she’s the daughter of the owner, though she does threaten to call the police on them. Jim all but double dares her to, but Mac takes away the phone. They decide to let Trudy stay the night in her own bedroom.

Mac and Jim stop Trudy (Gail Storm) from "stealing" her own clothes.

But soon afterwards, the night patrol, Brady (Arthur Hohl) and Felton (Edward Brophy), arrive to check on the house as part of their normal route. Mac takes Jim and Trudy into the walk-in refrigerator to hide. There he confesses to the two of them that he is indeed an interloper. It is also in the fridge that Jim gives Trudy his coat to keep warm. He sits with his arms around her and the first sparks of love are ignited.

Mac tries to run a tight ship. He doesn’t go in or out of the front door, makes his bed every day and keeps the house clean, even dusting the place every so often. In return, he wears O’Connor’s clothes, smokes his cigars and eats his larder of food.

Trudy nails her audition, even though it is obviously not Gail Storm singing. Outside the store, Jim is waiting to walk her back to the mansion. On the way back, they run into two families of old army buddies of Jim’s, Hank (Edward Ryan Jr.) and Whitey (Alan Hale, Jr.), who are trying to rent an apartment. Jim goes upstairs where his friends are negotiating with the apartment manager (Charles Lane). By mentioning the men’s families, which include small children, he ruins the deal. With no place to stay, Jim brings Hank and Alice (Cathy Carter) and Whitey and Margie (Dorothea Kent) and their children back to the mansion.

Mac takes on a supervisory role, trying to keep everyone from over running the place. He also becomes a sage for advice. When the men are trying to figure out what to do to make money, Mac inspires them to find something people need. Hitting on the post-war housing shortage, the men get the idea to renovate vacant army barracks and decide to make a bid on Camp Kilson. Hank and Alice are dispatched to Washington to see what they can find out about buying the camp.

Having located Trudy, O’Connor arrives in New York to order her back to school. But she doesn’t want to go back and tells him that she’s in love. She wants him to meet Jim and O’Connor reluctantly agrees to pose as a drifter to do so. They go and buy him some old clothes at a second hand shop. When O’Connor tries to use his custom-tailored wool suit as a trade-in, the proprietor, Finkelhoff (Abe Reynolds), concocts a wild story about how accepting the wool suit would lead to moths and eventually the breakup of his happy marriage and lead to his ruin and jail time. It is filler, but still a really funny piece of business.

Later that day, Jim, Trudy and Mac come through the park singing “It’s a Wonderful Wonderful Feeling” when they come across O’Connor sitting on a bench in the snow. Trudy points him out, imagining that the poor man is cold and hungry. While Mac is reluctant to bring every Tramp in New York back to the house, Trudy insists that they do to spare him from arrest.

Jim doesn't realize Mike (Charles Ruggles) is really Michael O'Connor.

When O’Connor, calling himself Mike to everyone, arrives at his house, it is laundry day and there are clotheslines everywhere in the grand hall. Mike first meets Jim when he and Whitey bring up their model for transforming the barracks up from the cellar. He suggests that they also build a model poor house for when their plans fail.

Mac decides that Mike needs to spend the night in the maid’s room, away from the small children. Mike is not pleased. Once he finally makes the bed, it falls apart under him. When Trudy comes down to check on him, he threatens to call the cops if everyone hasn’t cleared out in 24 hours.

Trudy then sends her mother, Mary (Ann Harding), a telegram to come up to New York. Mom isn’t sure what she can do, but agrees to go undercover at the mansion. There she becomes the cook, making slumgullion, an Irish stew, which Mike recognizes the smell of upon returning the next day. It was the stew that made him fall in love with Mary and he is surprised to see her there as well.

Mac tells Mike that he needs to work and bring home some money to help replace some of the food in the now depleted larder. For $1 an hour, Mac puts Mike to work shoveling snow from the sidewalks. It is while he’s doing this manual labor that Farrow comes upon him. But Mike makes him swear to secrecy.

Back at the mansion, Mike is sore and Mary comforts him, putting a hot iron on his back and massaging his neck. The two, alone for the first time, reminisce about their life when they started out. Mac, seeing them on a bed together, breaks them up.

Mike finds out from Jim, Whitey and Hank that they are bidding against him for Camp Kilson. They’ve managed to find likeminded vets and have raised $100,000. The bidding is up way past that number though. Mac had advised them not to worry about raising the additional funds until they absolutely need to. Still, Jim goes to a construction company to see if they will partner on the project.

Owning the construction company, Mike has them turn down the offer, but instead counter with an offer of a job for Jim in Bolivia, with the caveat that he’s single when he takes it. But Jim initially turns down the job.

On Christmas Eve, Mac encourages the two of them to marry, once again proving to be a well of good advice. That night, with a decorated tree, all the residents are celebrating the holiday when the night patrol arrives. But instead of turning them in, Brady and Felton want to join in and eventually leave them alone. However, they tell them to be out of the house after New Year’s Day.

The Christmas party is disrupted by the arrival of the Night Patrol. From left to right
the supporting cast: Hank (Edward Ryan Jr,), Alice (Cathy Carter), Margie
(Dorothea Kent) and Whitey (Alan Hale, Jr.)

Outbid for the Camp, Jim, Whitey and Hank go to tell their backers that they’ve lost. Mike is dragged along. When Farrow arrives, he is mistaken for the reclusive O’Connor and beaten back by thrown vegetables and fruit. Even Mike joins in and enjoys the fact he hits Farrow square in the puss with a tomato.

Seeing he has no other choice, Jim accepts the offer to work in Bolivia and takes Trudy out to dinner to tell her. Again, there is a really funny bit of business when they discover that the table is a little wobbly. The waiter (Pat Goldin) does everything imaginable to make it level, but only makes it worse. Switching out the tables doesn’t work either, when all Jim has to do is touch a corner to get it off kilter. Upset, Trudy leaves, with Jim trapped by the restaurant’s musicians who think he wants them to play at his table.

Trudy leaves Jim at the table in the Latin Delicatessen.

Knowing what it means to Trudy and her future with Jim and to his own future relationship with Mary, Mike arranges for Jim to meet O’Connor. When they get there, Jim, Whitey and Hank are surprised they are expected and sent in directly to see the head man. When they see it’s Mike behind the desk, they think he’s gone crazy and try to hide him in a coat closet. When Farrow comes in, they assume he’s O’Connor and don’t realize their mistake until Farrow saves O’Connor from the closet. Mike transfers the deed to the Camp to them on the one condition that they don’t tell Mac who he really is.

That New Year’s Eve, everyone celebrates the contract and prepare to leave the mansion. Mac insists that they clean the place thoroughly, anticipating O’Connor’s sooner than normal return.

New Year's Eve and the last night in the mansion for most.

In the final scene, they are all preparing to leave. The other families have already left when the main five are standing in the backyard preparing to exit through the loose plank in the fence. Both Mike and Mary and Trudy and Jim offer Mac a place to stay with them, but he declines. He’s planning on heading down to O’Connor’s house in Virginia assuming O’Connor is returning early to New York. It is never made clear that Jim knows Trudy is Mike’s daughter, but this couldn’t be revealed in front of Mac since he’s not supposed to know of Mike’s real identity.

Mac is a man with a plan. Next stop: Virginia.

After Mac leaves, Mike asks Mary to remind him to fix the fence. Next year, Mac will be coming in through the front door.

To promote the picture, Monogram sponsored a parade in Manhattan with New York's Fifth Avenue Merchants Association, as well as a six-week cross-country bus tour, which ended in Los Angeles. The film, budgeted at $1,700,000, received a mild critical response. I can’t find any box-office information about it, but it did not make the top twenty for films from 1947, though two other Christmas-themed films did: The Bishop’s Wife and Miracle on 34^th Street. It Happened on 5^th Avenue would continue to lose out to Miracle on 34th, losing the Academy Award for Best Original Story to that written by Valentine Davies.

Likewise, the film would fade from view, though a recent release by Warner Brothers Home Entertainment and showings on Turner Classic Movies have brought it back. It is a shame that it went away in the first place. An interesting story, the film has many genuinely laugh out loud moments not to mention some very witty dialogue and one-liners.

The cast is very good as well, led by Don DeFore. DeFore is best remembered not for his work on film, but rather television. He appeared in 96 episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952-57) as their neighbor, Thorny. DeFore was also the boss of Hazel (1961-1965) which starred Shirley Booth as the main character. Here he plays a brash and optimistic vet. I hate to say I’m not used to the youthful DeFore, but I like what I see and wonder why he didn’t make a bigger splash in films.

Don DeFore

Ann Harding gets second billing as Mary O’Connor. Even though she was nominated for Best Actress for Holiday (1930), I can’t say I’m familiar with her work. She is a good actress, but the role of Mary seems rather small for the billing she received.

Ann Harding

Charles Ruggles is one of the actors that I’ve liked in most things I’ve seen or heard him do (He was the voice of Aesop in the Aesop and Son segments from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show). Here he plays a conflicted man, who puts aside his business acumen for family. He has a really good sense of character and screen presence.

Charles Ruggles

Gail Storm, like Don DeFore, is best known for her work on television, playing the lead in 126 episodes of My Little Margie (1952-55) and 143 episodes of The Gail Storm Show (1956-60). In addition, she had a singing career despite the fact director Roy Del Ruth wouldn’t let her do her own singing in this film. She plays an appealing young woman, but she not the lynch pin that holds this film together. That belongs to Victor Moore, who plays Mac.

Gail Storm

A likable tramp, Mac is not only the ringleader of the squatters, but he dispenses fortune cookie-worthy advice, inspiring Jim and crew to build housing, Mike and Mary to consider remarrying and generally brings out the best in those around him. Mac holds the picture together and a lot of that is because of Moore’s acting. He brings a sense of morals and purpose to what could have all too easily been an advantageous bum. His performance is restrained, but exactly what the part calls for.

Victor Moore.

Moore began his acting career on stage, going back to Rosemary (1896) and including starring in the original production of George M. Cohan’s Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway (1906). [Note: Mary Is a Grand Old Name, the song that plays in a music box and when Ann Harding as Mary O’Connor is on screen, dates from this musical.] Moore would also star in Cohan’s sequel, The Talk of New York (1907), George and Ira Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! (1926), Of Thee I Sing (1931), Let ‘Em Eat Cake (1933) and Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (1934). He began a film career in 1915 and would appear in over 50 films, including Swing Time (1936) and The Seven Year Itch (1955).

The supporting cast of Alan Hale, Jr., Dorothea Kent, Edward Ryan, Jr. and Cathy Carter are really more filler than anything else. They and their children balloon the number of residents in the house, but they are clearly not the focus of the film. In fact, they make their leave off screen. It’s almost like they weren’t there at all. Hale, the son of Alan Hale, Sr., perhaps best known as Little John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), would, like DeFore and Storm, make his biggest splash on TV as The Skipper in Gilligan’s Island.

While the supporting cast might have been mostly ignored, the film is helped along by the comedic talents of Edward Brophy, but even more so by Paul Goldin and Abe Reynolds, who make the most of their brief time on screen. Reynolds would only appear in six films, including Swing Time (1936). Here he appears as the proprietor of Finkelhoff’s second hand clothing store and weaves a very funny tale enhanced by his Yiddish accent.

Abe Reynolds as Finkelhoff (left) makes the most of his screentime.

Goldin’s contribution is mostly silent as he plays a waiter trying to level the table in what otherwise might have been a heavy scene. He goes in one side of the table, emerges on the other and tries placing paper under the legs, but try as he might, nothing seems to work, not even getting another table. Goldin would have a longer career, appearing in twenty-nine films, including five Jiggs and Maggie comedy films in the late 40’s and 50’s and in a couple of Ma and Pa Kettle films. He would also appear in another Del Ruth directorial effort, The Babe Ruth Story (1948).

I’ve heard there was some friction on the set, as Del Ruth, for whatever reason, wouldn’t allow Storm to do her own singing, but what ends up on the screen is pretty well done. The film overly relies on backdrops and rear projection instead of shooting outside, though it does go on location to Virginia for exteriors of O’Connor’s mansion there. It comes across a little too much like it was shot on a sound stage, when a touch of the real world might have been better for it.

And I’m not a big fan of the songs or their placement in the movie, especially when Jim, Trudy and Mac are singing their way through the park. If this were a musical comedy, then it might seem appropriate, but instead it seems sort of awkward here and out of place with the rest of the movie. Maybe there was the hope of producing a Christmas standard from the film, but that didn’t really happen.

The songs aside, I’m glad to have finally seen It Happened on 5th Avenue and would recommend it to anyone looking for something different to watch during the Christmas season. It is funny and sweet and there’s not much more you could want in a holiday film. Watch it if only for Victor Moore’s performance and you should not be disappointed.

To read reviews of other Christmas films, please see our Christmas Review Hub.

Stubs - Winner Take All (1932)

Winner Take All (1932) Starring James Cagney, Marian Nixon, Guy Kibbee, Dickie Moore Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Produced by Roy Del Ruth (uncredited). Screenplay by Robert Lord and Wilson Mizner (adaptation) Based on the short story “133 at 3” by Gerald Beaumont published in Redbook, March 1921. Run Time: 66 minutes. U.S.  Black and White.  Drama, Romance, Boxing.

It seems that every major star at Warner Brothers was in the B-Picture Unit at one time or another. Studios owned the theaters and they wanted to keep the product fresh and to keep their emerging stars in front of the audience as much as possible. James Cagney, who had only the year before he had his breakout film, The Public Enemy, would be in three films in 1932: Winner Take All, The Crowd Roars and Taxi. You had to give the people what they wanted and, apparently, they wanted Cagney.

While convalescing at a hospital in New Mexico, New York boxer Jimmy Kane (James Cagney) meets and falls in love with Peggy Hamon (Marian Nixon). They realize that they had met once before in New York when she worked in the nightclubs. Peggy is in New Mexico for her son Dickie’s (Dickie Moore) health. The boy’s health issues are never really spelled out, but doctors told Peggy six months in New Mexico would do wonders for him.

Dickie Hamon  (Dickie Moore) and his mother Peggy (Marian Nixon)
sandwich Jimmy Kane (James Cagney) is a scene from Winner Take All.

But Peggy has money problems. Money she had counted on from her husband’s life insurance won’t be coming, since the policy had elapsed. Jimmy, who isn’t supposed to fight, decides to get back into the ring, travelling down to Tijuana to raise the $600 she needs to stay at the hospital. Jimmy gets convinced to get into a winner take all pot of $2000. And that is his motivation to knock out the other fighter.

Jimmy pays for Peggy to stay and the couple seems happy together. But word gets out about Jimmy’s Mexican fight. At first his manager, Pop Slavin (Guy Kibbee) is mad at Jimmy, but soon he sees the opportunity. We watch this transition through a series of telegrams from Pop, which eventually tell Jimmy to come to Chicago to arrange some fights. At the train station, Jimmy promises Peggy that he’ll send for her and Dickie as soon as he can.

But things turn out differently. Jimmy’s re-emergence on the fight scene goes very well. He wins fight after fight, which draws the attention of blonde society girl Joan Gibson (Virginia Bruce). She seems to be fascinated by Jimmy the way Jane Goodall is fascinated by chimps. She likes to bring him to society affairs because he doesn’t really fit in and she’s attracted to his putty nose and cauliflower ear. Joan leads Jimmy on, but that seems to drive him wild. He thinks she’s in love with him.

Jimmy rests between rounds while manager Pop Slavin (Guy Kibbee), upper right,
watches and trainer Rosebud (Clarence Muse), lower right, attends to him.

When Pop arranges for Jimmy to fight the lightweight champ, Jimmy turns it down. Instead, he goes to have plastic surgery and gets a nose and ear job. He also takes elocution and etiquette lessons, all trying to impress Joan. But when she seems him, she’s not happy. She confides to a friend that now he looks ordinary.

Jimmy has surgery to be more appealing to Joan (Virginia Bruce), but she is not impressed.

Jimmy has Pop arrange for some easy fights. He changes his style, becomes less combative and gets known for bicycling around the ring. He goes from fan favorite to being booed for his style. He even loses a fight by getting out boxed. And when the fans boo, Joan leaves the arena.

Meanwhile, Pop has sent for Peggy. But Jimmy is only thinking about Joan and puts off their reunion until the next day. Jimmy goes to Joan’s apartment and is told by the butler that she’s not there, even though she’s having a party. Jimmy is outraged at Joan and confronts her about her behavior telling her that, not only will she be ring side at his championship fight, but she’s going to marry him.

The next morning, Jimmy tells Peggy that he’s met someone else and breaks her heart.

Jimmy moves forward with his plans to marry Joan, having a tux made and buying a diamond ring. But when he fights the champ, he notices that the four seats he reserved for Joan are empty. He has his trainer, Rosebud (Clarence Muse), call to find out where she is. He returns during the fight to tell Jimmy that Joan is on her way to a ship that is leaving within the hour.

Jimmy takes care of the champ, but flees the ring and jumps into a cab, still wearing his boxing shorts and gloves. He manages to get on the liner and finds Joan’s cabin. She tells him that word had reached her that her sister is sick in Havana. Jimmy’s not sure he believes her, but the truth comes out when Roger Elliott (John Roche) comes into the cabin. Even Jimmy can figure out that Joan is running away with Roger. He punches Roger and gives Joan  a well-deserved kick in her keester when she bends over Roger's unconscious bpdy, before fleeing the ship. 

Next, Jimmy is proposing to Peggy, telling her that it’s always been her and he gives her the diamond ring he’d bought for Joan. Peggy accepts.

This is supposed to pass for a happy ending, but clearly Peggy is a second choice and Jimmy is lying to her about his feelings. But we’ll forgive the film for this sloppy ending.

While James Cagney would become a great movie actor, he lets his kinetic energy and mush-minded boxer persona carry the day in this film. But really this is far from a stellar acting job from anyone involved. But if you’re a fan of Cagney’s you’ll want to watch it at least once.

The sequences may be sped up, but Cagney still looks tough in boxing trunks.

Winner Take All is one of those films that looks like it was made in the same amount of time as it runs on the screen. Pacing is everything, the faster the better. The boxing sequences are even sped up to just this side of looking comical. Character development and motivations are thrown out the window in the film’s never-ceasing rush to get to the final credits.

Winner Take All (1932) is available at the Warner Archive Collection:

Stubs - Taxi

TAXI (1932) Starring: James Cagney, Loretta Young, George E. Stone, Guy Kibbee Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Screenplay by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright. Run Time: 69. Black and White. U.S. Drama, Romance

James Cagney stars in this “swiftie” made the year after his explosive turn as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy. Cagney plays Matt Nolan, an independent cabbie in New York City, though he appears to drive for Gramercy, based on the name on the door. Independents like him are being put out of business by Consolidated, a rival cab company that uses mobster tactics to get their way.

The first victim we see is Pops Riley (Guy Kibbee). Pops is warned by Buck Gerard (David Landau) that Consolidated is moving in and taking over his location, which is front of a fish restaurant where his daughter Sue (Loretta Young) works as a waitress. She witnesses her father being hassled and encourages him to fight back. And he does. Then Buck has one of his boys, Bull Martin (Nat Pendleton), drive a truck in Pops’ cab, destroying it. When Pops confronts him, Bull pushes Pops down to the ground, but when he starts to leave, Pops caps him.

In a swift courtroom scene, Pops has already been convicted and is sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing. In the audience are Sue and another waitress from the fish joint Ruby (Leila Bennett). The next time we see Sue is back in the restaurant where she waits on Matt, his friend Skeets (George E. Stone) and Matt’s younger brother Danny (Ray Cooke). Sue has just returned from seeing her father, who has already died in prison. (This movie does not let grass grow under its feet). Matt invites Sue to speak at a rally of the indie cab drivers, but when she does, Sue speaks of finding a peaceful solution to the rivalry with Consolidated, as she has seen what violence did to her father.

The next day, the paper’s headline pronounces the end of the taxi wars. But Matt is still sore about Sue upstaging him and he along with Skeets and another cabbie confront her outside the fish joint when she gets off work. But Sue doesn’t care that Matt is still mad and doesn’t confront him. While she climbs the stairs to the Elevated train, Skeets admires her pins (legs), but Matt says he’s through with her.

That is until the very next shot, when Matt and Sue are seen in line for a movie with Skeets and Ruby. What? Wasn’t Matt just mad at her a second ago? The film spends no time showing us any character development or change of minds; just like a shark it has to keep moving forward or die. Matt and Sue go to the movies and then go dancing, where they almost win a foxtrot contest, but lose out to a couple which includes William Kenny (George Raft), who Matt naturally gets into a fist fight with when he loses. This is one of the many times we see Matt lose his temper and either hit someone or start to hit someone. Even his loving gesture to Sue is a raised hand like he’s going to slap her if “I think you really mean that.”

It is not surprising that Matt has a quick temper, since this movie has no time for anything that’s not fast. Their whirlwind romance is often put off course by Matt’s quick temper. Even when he’s trying to keep it under control, say on the way to get the marriage license, Matt nearly gets into it with a fat, pre-occupied man on the elevator (Sam Rice), who steps on Matt’s feet and nudges him with his arms. The man on the elevator turns out to be the marriage license clerk.

At about this point in the film you might forget this film is called Taxi, as there hasn’t been mention of one for several scenes. But I digress.

We know Matt and Sue get married, because next we see them they are at a party with Skeets, Ruby, Danny and Danny’s date Polly (Polly Walters) celebrating the nuptials. Seated not too far away is Buck and Marie (Dorothy Burgess). Marie gets Sue’s attention and the two of them meet up in the ladies’ room. Marie convinces Sue to get Matt out of the club before he and Buck get into it. But Sue doesn’t move fast enough and Matt and Buck do get into it. But when Buck comes at Matt with his switchblade, Danny comes between them and he gets murdered. Buck manages to escape, but Matt wants revenge.

We see Sue and Matt at home one night. Matt is working extra hard to raise money for Danny’s tombstone and when he leaves to “check the tires” on the cab, Marie comes to visit Sue. In a case of twisted logic, she convinces Sue to help Buck get the money to escape. Her logic is that if Matt finds Buck he’ll kill him and become a murderer, too. Now Sue goes along with this and gives her Danny’s tombstone money if you can believe it.

Matt, as you might have guessed it, tested the tires by going out to purchase Danny’s tombstone, which will cost the $100 Sue has just given away.

Before Marie can leave the apartment, Skeets and Ruby show up. Skeets takes particular notice of Marie and goes to tell Matt that Buck’s girl has been in his apartment. He catches up to Matt just as he’s leaving the monument makers. He tells him that Consolidated has offered both of them jobs and to buy their hacks (Oh, yeah this is a movie about cabdrivers). It is an offer Matt does refuse. Skeets also tells Matt that he just saw Marie in his apartment.

Matt rushes (what else would he do?) back to his apartment and confronts Sue, who tells him that she lent the money to Ruby so she can attend secretarial school, which is a lie and one of many she’ll tell Matt, the guy with the quick temper. Marie naturally ruins the lie by asking Matt for a ride to school with a stop on the way at the bank so she can get the money for the school. Just then, Skeets shows up. He has been tipped off as to the address where Buck is and tells Matt.

But Sue manages to lock Matt in their apartment and gets Skeets to take her to Buck’s hideout ahead of Matt. (Does nobody think to call the police?) Of course, Ruby is in tow and the three of them drive to Marie’s apartment building. Matt is not deterred and escapes down the fire escape and takes his own cab over to kill Buck.

Sue, leaving Ruby and Skeets in the hall, goes in and warns Buck that Matt is on his way. Buck who has already been seen packing, tells Marie to pack him a bag. (Hey, this movie has no time for continuity.) While Matt doesn’t know which apartment Marie is in, even though he scans the mailboxes, finding Skeets and Ruby standing outside one on the second floor is a dead giveaway. Matt busts down the door as Buck hides in the closet. Sue again lies to Matt and tells him that Buck is gone, but a packed bag on the bedroom floor is a giveaway that that is not the case. Matt knows Buck is hiding in the closet.

Now, you would not expect such a quickie film to contain such a famous line, but this one does. For anyone old enough to have seen someone do a James Cagney impression and impersonators doing Cagney impressions used to be very common on TV, they always do one line in particular: “MMMmmm, you dirty rat.” While that is not what Cagney’s character actually says, that famous line was bastardized from one he actually delivers in this movie in this scene: “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to you through the door.”

But before Matt can make good on his threat, the police (yes, someone must have called them), show up. Sue suddenly cannot tell a lie and tells the cops that Matt is there to kill Buck and that he has a gun. But in true fashion, Matt pushes the police aside and empties the gun into the door of the closet. But when they break in, Buck is not there. Instead, he has fallen to his death climbing out the window in the closet. (Windows in closets were very common as light sources, so it is not just a plot convenience for there to be one.) We learn from a story in the newspaper that Buck fell to his death when he lost his balance.

In the last scene of the movie, Sue, now calling herself by her maiden surname, is packing up and moving away, her brief marriage to Matt apparently over. But before the moving men can get the last trunk, Matt shows up and kisses Sue. Marriage, at least for now, saved. And as Ruby yells out to the moving men, the love birds are going to again feather their nest.

And our quick taxi ride comes to an abrupt, but happy end.

There are really some things to like about this movie. Cagney of course, has charisma and star presence to burn. Like many early films, this one showcases Cagney’s energetic and forceful acting style at the time. The downside is that there is little for him to work with. His character, even though a lead, is pretty much one note throughout. We do get to see Cagney dance, but there is little of the humor that he was capable of bringing to a character.

Loretta Young is so pretty she is almost worth the price of admission. She actually gets to show some internal struggle, even though I can’t say I follow the logic of helping the man who killed your husband’s brother escape justice.

And that brings me to what is my biggest complaint about this movie, the screenplay. If the screenplay is good, you really don’t notice it. But this one must have been written in a speeding cab on the way to the set; it is so full of holes and illogic. The romance between Matt and Sue develops like a jump cut. While it is not uncommon for a couple to move from I can’t stand him/her to I love him/her, I’ve never seen one in which that movement is excised totally until this film.

I know that sound had only been around for a few years, but the novelty had worn off by then, The script though would make you think they just wanted to have people say things, no matter if they made sense or not. The best example of this is Ruby, who despite being a secondary character never seems to shut up. Throughout the film she is constantly talking, even if no other character is listening or engaged. She blathers on so much in a fairly monotone voice that you start to dread to see her show up on screen. Again, it comes down to the script.

And much of the drama in this film comes out of people doing stupid things. Why doesn’t anyone call the police and say the guy that you’re looking for is at this address? No, let’s tell Matt the hothead where Buck is. Or let’s go warn Buck that Matt is on to him, rather than call the police with Buck’s whereabouts. When the police do show up, you really have to wonder why. They are totally a convenience to bring the story to conclusion.

While I’ve read that this film was a big success for Cagney at the time, if you want to see Cagney at his best, there are other ones you should see and you might want to miss this Taxi.

Taxi is available at the Warner Archive Collection:

And on the Warner Archive Instant: