The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.7/10   

Director:

Raoul Walsh

Escritores:

Jerry Wald (screenplay) &
Richard Macaulay (screenplay) ...

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

23 octubre 1939 (USA)

Género:

Crimen | Drama | Suspenso

Frase comercial:

The land of the free gone wild! The heyday of the hotcha! The shock-crammed days G-men took ten whole years to lick!

Plot:

After the WWI Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging...

Plot Keywords:

Prohibition | Lawyer | 1920s | WWI | Murder

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Vintage Warner Brothers of the thirties

US TV Schedule:

Fri. July 10

6:45 AM

TCM

Reparto

James Cagney	...	Eddie Bartlett
Priscilla Lane	...	Jean Sherman
Humphrey Bogart	...	George Hally
Gladys George	...	Panama Smith
Jeffrey Lynn	...	Lloyd Hart
Frank McHugh	...	Danny Green
Paul Kelly	...	Nick Brown
Elisabeth Risdon	...	Mrs. Sherman (as Elizabeth Risdon)
Edward Keane	...	Henderson (as Ed Keane)
Joe Sawyer	...	The Sergeant
Joseph Crehan	...	Michaels
George Meeker	...	Masters
John Hamilton	...	Judge
Robert Elliott	...	First Detective
Eddy Chandler	...	Second Detective (as Eddie Chandler)

También conocida como:

The World Moves On (USA) (working title)
Los alegres 20 (Venezuela) [es]
Los violentos años veinte (Spain) [es]

Duración:

104 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Australia:PG (TV rating) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #5576) | Australia:G

Locaciones de Filmación:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Compañía:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivialidades:

Based on the life and career of real-life bootlegger Larry Fay. Unlike James Cagney's Eddie Bartlett, however, Fay stood 6'3" inches tall, and was long-jawed and gangly.

Errores:

Errores que Revelan: When the gangsters hurl bombs at a storefront from the car, watch the prop explosives bounce off the building and roll into the street before the blast.

Citas:

Eddie Bartlett: One thing, Lloyd. They tell me your boss is building a case against our old friend, George.
Lloyd Hart: The case is already built, Eddie.
Eddie Bartlett: Yeah, well, you remember what he said would happen if you ever told what you knew about him?
Lloyd Hart: I remember.
Eddie Bartlett: So does he.

Conexiones de Película:

Apareció en The Long Shadow of Dirty Harry (2008) (V)

Banda de Sonido:

Cryin' for the Carolines

Vintage Warner Brothers of the thirties

Not as well remembered as "Little Caesar" or "Public Enemy," "The Roaring Twenties" is the culmination of a decade's worth of Warner Brothers gangster films. It was also James Cagney's last tough guy role at the studio for almost a decade.

Cagney is criticized by some in this one for not packing the cinematic punch he did in "Public Enemy" or "White Heat." But this film was the brain child of former Broadway columnist Mark Hellinger and was written as almost an ode to the Damon Runion-like characters Hellinger knew when he prowled the great white way during the 20s. Hellinger was a regular at the famous El Fey club and friend of Texas Guinan, the wild saloon hostess who personified the twenties. Cagney's good/bad guy character, Eddie Bartlett, was in fact based on Larry Fay, the cab driver turned bootlegger who opened the El Fey and hired Guinan as his hostess. Fay is also believed to have been one of the inspirations for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Bartlett is meant to symbolize,not a psychotic criminal, but more the social confusion that resultedfrom the passage of a highly unpopular law meant to regulate character,which wound up having the absolute opposite effect, spawning an era of lawlessness.

Although Cagney dominates every scene he is in, the more ominous gangster in the film is played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his best performances prior to assuming character roles in the late 40s. His trigger happy hood was probably fashioned after Owen "Ownie the Killer" Madden, the bootlegger who bought into Harlem's Cotton Club and formed a loose alliance with Fay.

Strong supporting work comes from Gladys George, who plays Panama Smith, the Texas Guinan character.

This picture is slick, well produced, uniformly well acted under the direction of action specialist Raoul Walsh and features some great Cagney stick. When he exploded on screen, there was no one like him.