From a story by Mark Hellinger, who based it on real characters. Begins in WWI, where tough cookies Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart meet, along with more sensitive Jeffrey Lynn. Unable to work, Cagney gets mixed up in illegal booze, with Gladys George (Dana Andrews' step mom in The Best Years of Out Lives) and old friend Frank McHugh (one of his more substantial roles), whilst attempting to romance dancer / singer Priscilla Lane (who, with Lynn, represent the wetter end of the cast). 45 minutes in, Bogie turns up again, also in the illegal booze business, and the bad boys team up.
Don Siegel had just started working in the montage department at Warners, and together with Jim Leicester and 'Bob' Burks they designed some incredible montage sequences e.g. one representing the Wall Street Crash.
It seems both seminal and derivative, if not too contradictory, for example, murder set up in Italian restaurant. Directed with brisk efficiency, photographed by Ernie Haller. Bogie and Cagney are great, special mention to Abner Biberman as Bogie's no. 2 (His Girl Friday, Winchester '73).
Cagney rated Walsh (who directed him also in The Strawberry Blonde and White Heat) as one f his favourite directors because "if I don't know what the hell to do - can get up and show me".
Hal B. Wallis produced.
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