City for Conquest (Warner Bros.) (1940)

@ Cagney Story Jimmy Cagney Goes Very Romantic in ‘City For Conquest’ Jimmy Cagney is going romantic. What’s more he likes it! The little rough and tumble Irishman has finally succumbed to hugs and kisses in front of the camera. “As long as the studio cast me opposite Ann Sheridan, I don’t suppose there is much I can do about it,” Jimmy said, on the set of “City For Conquest,” the new picture opening in the Strand Friday. Cagney just caught his breath after playing opposite the red headed siren in “Torrid Zone,’’ when he learned they were to be together again. Not since the days when Cagney first gained prominence as a tough guy, has he had a chance to hold a girl tenderly in his arms and promise to lay the world at her feet. So far in films, Cagney has reached his objectives with the aid of fists, fast talk, and bullets. In “City For Conquest” everything hinges on how sweetly and sincerely he can tell Miss Sheridan of his love. The studio is enthused over its new romantic star and is rushing a story through about a young married interne. Slated for the role of the wife is Ann Sheridan. ® Advance Story Cagney Takes Poke At ‘Oomph Girl For Story’s Sake Jimmy Cagney came closest to a blow at an actress that he has come since swearing off the “grapefruit” style of motion picture lovemaking, when he did a scene of scuffling with Ann Sheridan in Warner Bros.’ “City For Conquest” opening at the Strand Theatre on Friday. The script required Cagney to punch Ann on her shoulder when she tried to step between Cagney and Anthony Quinn, during a quarrel scene. What Cagney actually did was to aim a blow that glanced by Miss Sheridan’s right shoulder, but which by tricks of camera angles, lighting, and the old rule of “the hand is quicker than the eye,” looked as if it landed on Miss Sheridan. Cagney’s most memorable early film scene was the one with Mae Clarke in which Jimmy scrubbed Mae’s face with a grapefruit, and he followed with a number of other roles in which Jim did unkind things to Miss Clarke and other leading women. But Cagney swore off striking the fair sex four years ago, and never even got so close as to aim a blow in the direction of an actress, until the tricked blow that Ann didn’t really feel, in “City For Conquest.” ‘City For Conquest’ Has New York Setting Both the old home front of the Jimmy Cagneys, on 69th Street, and the tenement in which Scenarist John Wexley lived as a boy on 109th Street, New York, were recreated for part of the typical metropolitan background in Cagney and Ann Sheridan’s co-starring film “City For Conquest” opening at the Strand Friday. Wexley did the screen adaptation of the story from Novelist Aben Kandel’s book. Anatole Litvak directed. ® Advance Feature on Cagney Still CC 416; Mat 210—30c TOGETHER THEY'RE TERRIFIC—Ann Sheridan and James Cagney, the torrid team of "Torrid Zone" are together again in "City For Conquest," the turbulent drama coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday. Acting Helps Cagney To Realize His Ambitions As a New York high school boy, Jimmy Cagney longed to spend his future (1) as a farmer. (2) as a physician. (3) going to sea. (4) catching baseball in some big league. (5) testing his pugilistic mettle against the best boxers of equal weight. (6) driving a harness horse. (7) owning a big home and a big bank account. (8) reading books. and (9) being a philanthropist. Jimmy quickly concluded that one life was too short to do all these things, so he decided upon the only career that would combine them. He turned actor. As an actor, Cagney figured, he could change his professions with his roles, and still have time left over for reading books and other avocations. How neatly Jimmy Cagney plotted his future, is evident from Jimmy’s current eminence as an actor, and his current pleasant niche in private life. He is currently vacationing after having finished “City For Conquest,” the film opening at the Strand Friday. A gentleman farmer in private life, Jimmy owns his New England farm on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and his own stable of pacing and trotting horses at Pomona, Cal. His activities as a physician have been gratuitous, but active, as he has sometimes watched operations conducted by his two surgeon-brothers, Drs. Harry and Edward Cagney, of Jackson Heights, L. I. Responding to the call of the sea, Jimmy owns a small island in Newport Bay, Cal., with his own yacht, Martha—a 61-footer —tied up at his own dock. As a baseball catcher, Jimmy is proud of the photos which were taken of himself and his teammates of the New York “Nut Club” diamond team. A couple of his team mates on that Club, were big leaguers: Mickey Finn of the Dodgers and “Specs” Torporcer. As a boxer, Cagney proved his mettle many times over during his ten year tenure as a kingpin movie star. As to the big home and the bank account, the books he reads, the art he collects, and the philanthropic things Cagney does for down-on-their-luck actors, Jimmy is a _ conspicious figure in Hollywood. It seems that everything came true for Jimmy when he couldn’t make up his mind what profession to follow; and suddenly decided to follow all of them at once, by turning actor. Famed Author Wrote ‘City For Conquest’ John Wexley, writer of the sereen play for Jimmy Cagney and Ann Sheridan’s “City For Conquest,” is renowned for his writings on the realistic and emotional side of big city life. Wexley was only 28 years of age when he had the stage hit, “The Last Mile,” on Broadway. Both Wexley and Aben Kandel, the novelist who wrote “City For Conquest,” had themselves lived the kind of stark lives their youthful New York characters lead through the dramatic incidents of “City For Conquest.” Jimmy Cagney, Ann Sheridan, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy, George Tobias, Jerome Cowan and Elia Kazan top the cast of the picture, which opens on Friday at the Strand. No Pause Twixt Film Chores for Tobias George Tobias, who for the past half year has been the busiest actor on the Warner Bros. lot, registered surprise when asked if he were going to take a vacation. After concurrent assignments in various pictures he was devoting himself to just one—‘City For Conquest,” in which he appears with James Cagney and Ann Shevidan, Frank Craven, Donald Crisp, Frank McHugh and Elia Kazan. This is the film opening Friday at the Strand. “T don’t need a vacation,” he said. “I’m working myself into a system whereby as long as they don’t give me too many pictures to do at the same time, I don’t care. Nothing like keeping yourself before the public.” ®@ Advance Feature on Sheridan Sheridan Thanks Cagney For Teaching Her to Act Jimmy Cagney sank into a set chair opposite Ann Sheridan on the set of “City For Conquest,” the film opening at the Strand Friday. The young lady whose superior personal charm caused a new word to be coined to express it, allowed an interested grin to illuminate her face. “Hello, teacher,” said Annie. “What do you mean, ‘Teacher?’?” said Cagney sharply, as his grin answered Ann’s mischievous look. ““You’re giving the rest of us lessons in new words, and how to act, aren’t you?” “Listen Cagney,’ Ann _ reproved, “You’re not fooling me any, and you’re not fooling yourself, either. “I got out of the primary grade in acting when I played with you and Pat O’Brien in ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’,” Ann continued. “Remember the scene we had in the garret room, and how you stuck around for hours with me while we worked it out and rehearsed it? Remember the scene where you told me about the bright lights and the fun of the big city, and then you afterward gave me some advice? Well little Annie didn’t forget the scene, or the bright lights, or the advice. And she didn’t forget the buildup that Cagney gave her. , “And do you remember the excitement we had in ‘Torrid Zone’? “Remember the time the blank cartridge fired too closely and shot you in the leg? I felt like a murderer, and you went right on playing. Remember how you told me to lower my voice instead of raise it, and I’d steal a scene at the Central American banana plantation? “Well, Cagney, don’t give me any of that disinterested stuff! Here we are again, playing in ‘City For Conquest,’ and just tell me when the new lessons in scene playing begin.” Seen and Heard on the set of ‘City For Conquest’ (A line or two for local columns) ANN SHERIDAN trying with all her “oomph” to play one of the trumpets used in a dancehall sequence in “City For Conquest”— only to learn that the horn was built only for show and not for blow. * JAMES CAGNEY’S definition of a good actor: One who makes the longest scene in a picture seem like the shortest. * ACCIDENT—George Tobias, one of Hollywood’s most gifted and gesticulating conversationalists, sat around the set of “City For Conquest”? shrouded in deep silence. Donald Crisp wanted to know why, and Tobias told him laconically, “Had an accident.” “Affect your throat?” Crisp asked. “No, sprained my arm,” said Tobias. * FRANK McHUGH christened Ann Sheridan “The Jeep,” during production on “City For Conquest.” Reason, explained Frank, is because she brings good luck to every picture she works in. ste BS x NOT IN THE SCRIPT were the romantic scenes played offstage by Elia Kazan, film newcomer from the Broadway stage, and Barbara Lynn, pert brunette from the Earl Carroll show. Both are featured in “City For Conquest.” JUST A MADCAP—Frank McHugh possesses the greatest ward robe of men’s caps in Hollywood. He owns one of nearly every type that has ever been made, and supplies all those which he wears in his role as “Muttface” in “City For Conquest.” * CITY SONG—Noises of the city were gathered into a seven-minute symphony, “Song of the City,” which plays an important part in the plot of “City For Conquest.” Max Steiner composed it from the author’s description of New York noises. Still CC 35; Mat 212—30c THEY CONQUER THE CITY—Starting left and reading clockwise are James Cagney, Joyce Compton, Anthony Quinn, Ann Sheridan, George Tobias and Frank McHugh who head the cast of "City For Conquest,’ which begins an extended run at the Strand on Friday.