The Roaring 20s

It's amazing, considering how much plot details and even the title of The Roaring Twenties ties to a very specific time period, how timeless this film is. It's certainly not one of James Cagney's most famous films, in the memories of modern audiences; people remember "top o' the world, ma!" from White Heat, and maybe the famous grapefruit sequence from The Public Enemy. The only thing modern viewers might know about The Roaring Twenties is that clips were used in a Diet Coke commercial in the late nineties. That's too bad, because The Roaring Twenties is a compelling and fun film, similar to many modern Coppola and Scorsese films about the mafia.

Cagney stars as Eddie Bartlett, a World War I veteran who returns home from the battlefields to discover that the job he's been counting on has been given away to another man -- despite his employer's promise to hold the position for Eddie. Desperate for work, he alternates taxicab shifts with his only friend, a freelance cab driver. When one of his passengers turns out to be a bootlegger, Eddie ends up getting the blame. Despite this inauspicious introduction to the world of illegally transporting liquor, he nevertheless becomes immersed in the culture of bootlegging, thanks to his friendship with speakeasy hostess "Panama" Smith. Meanwhile, as Eddie rapidly rises through the ranks of organized crime, he pursues a romance with Jean "Mineola" Sherman, a struggling chorus girl who is very nice, but too young for Eddie, and completely uninterested in him romantically. Eddie's puppy love is blind to the facts that Panama is in love with him, while Jean is more interested in Eddie's lawyer, Lloyd Hart.

I know, I know, all of this sounds like a mushy romantic tragedy with a mere backdrop of organized crime, but the real emphasis of the story is Eddie's gradual transformation from an innocent do-gooder to a man who is honestly unaware of his growing corruption, to the leader of a small but lucrative criminal empire. Four great performances form the centerpiece of the action: As Eddie, Cagney is charming and witty, and most importantly for films of this type, completely sympathetic even when he's at his most dastardly. Frank McHugh is effective as Eddie's buddy and sidekick, and provides light-hearted comic relief without ever going over the top. Gladys George provides a skillfully subtle performance as Panama, who (in a welcome change of pace from a modern character, who would be either a schemer or a victim) tries to support Eddie's pursuit of Jean despite her own feelings. And Humphrey Bogart is simply amazing, in the supporting role of George, a disloyal and possibly sociopathic army buddy who goes into business with Eddie, much to their mutual regret. I can't say enough for the performances in this film. There's a moment when Bogie squints his eyes in just such a perfect way, he communicates worlds of thought in an instant.

All of this is tied together with a witty script by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay, which expertly balances action, humor, romance, and character. What do we learn from these characters? Lessons as true today as they were in the twenties and thirties: Soldiers returning from combat rarely get the aid and respect they deserve. Faced with a choice between two women, men will often pursue the younger girl with no interest, rather than notice that a more appropriate and willing woman is right in front of their eyes. If your instincts tell you not to trust somebody, trust those instincts. And most important of all, "it's not mine, officer, I was just holding it for someone else" never works, even if it's true.