Orson Welles thought Jimmy Cagney one of the greatest actors. He's seething with violence and charisma in Walsh's exciting gangster thriller. The hood's relationship with his mother is unsettlingly close. Great performance from her too, Margaret Wycherley. Also credit to Virginia Mayo and Edmond O'Brien. With Steve Cochran, John Archer, Wally Cassell and Fred Clark.
Photographed by Sid Hickox, great score by Max Steiner, edited by Owen Marks. Warners.
Ingenious police methods on display here - detective playing prisoner, car tailing, radio cars.
Very exciting, brilliant simple direction, a cracking ending in a chemicals plant after a longish film (an hour 50), quite violent for its time. In the 1970s, Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich watched it together, really enjoying Cagney's performance and his 'hypnotic, charismatic personality' and were actually hissing the FBI guy!
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