Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

This is a "boiled shirt" moment in the life of a young gangster. Meet James Cagney who puts a real punch in "The Public Enemy." This redheaded Irishman is on his way up — watch him! Close-up of what the Irishman said to the Englishman — but maybe Jimmy Cagney has lapsed into Yiddish. Anyway, Mr. Arliss looks interested in this scene from "The Millionaire" Jimmy from the "Jun ON the afternoon of July 1 7, 1904, the swinging doors of John Cagney's saloon on Avenue D, near Tenth Street, New York, banged open. John Cagney himself strode in, an expansive grin on his Irish face. "The drinks," he bellowed, "is on me! Set 'em up — an' see what the boys in the back room'll have." Mr. Cagney's customers, needing no further parley at that moment, drank. When his schooner was empty, a certain one of them drew the back of his hand across his foamy lips and raised the question. "An' phwat'll the free drinks bein' fer, Misther Cagney?" "Because," roared John Cagney, "th' missus has just brought another Cagney into the world, an' he's got red hair, an' his name is Jim." Whereat the pride of parenthood became so strong that Mr. Cagney bought another round of drinks for the house. So was announced to the world the advent of James Cagney — — and the piano player in Polonsky's movie nickelodeon down the street never missed a note. Nothing seemed more unrelated at that moment than the flickering screen of the nickelodeon, and the birth of a red-haired Irish saloonkeeper's kid, named James Cagney. And, as a matter of fact, for more than a score of the years Jimmy Cagney has lived since then, the relationship continued nil. Jimmy grew up just like hundreds of other kids — Irish and Jewish and other kinds — in the "Guerilla Jungle," which was the cop's name for the district where Jimmy was born. Jimmy wasn't any tougher than the other kids. And he wasn't any un-tougher. Kids in a district cops called a "Guerilla Jungle" don't wear Little Lord Fauntleroy collars and airs. By Harry Lang Jimmy learned from environment that the proper way to smoke a cigarette in his social circle was to let it hang from your lower lip. He learned how to clip a guy on the jaw and send him listening to birdies. He learned words and phrases that are not in primers and first readers. He learned how to speak Yiddish! — but he never let his father know. And even today, in Hollywood, where James Cagney is suddenly one of the screen's newest sensations, the red-haired little Irishman suddenly convulses a party, now and then, by breaking out into a torrent of perfect Yiddish. It's pretty well understood in Hollywood, and always somebody laughs at what Jimmy's Irish pan is saying in Yiddish. But it can't be printed, usually. BUT that's getting away from the story of Jimmy's start in life — and the explanation to the question that has been bothering movie fans' minds ever since "The Public Enemy" burst onto the screen as the newest and most terrifying of the current output of gangster films. Fans, seeing Cagney swaggering through the amazing sequences of this picture — seeing him be tough, talk tough, act tough; seeing him clip a dame on the jaw for getting funny with him; seeing him doing a hundred and one other things along that line with an amazing naturalness— are asking how the youngster can be that good an actor. The answer is that Jimmy Cagney isn't an actor when he portrays those roles on the screen. In that part, Jimmy Cagney is much less an actor than he is when he's off the screen, trying to act like another citizen of Hollywood. On the screen in 'The Public Enemy," Jimmy is actually reliving the life he was part and parcel of throughout the formative years of his life. It's just a cinch for Jimmy! [ please turn to page 1 14 \ I.Q