ksf-2 James Cagney is public investigator "Johnny", investigating a violent attack on Mr. Green, who is now in the hospital. Some pretty rough editing, or maybe it's just the fact that most copies are now in public domain, so the copies are pretty shoddy quality. We watch Johnny as he goes shopping and catches the clerks ripping off the customers in almost every department. Almost more of a documentary, this highlights how the public officials are keeping an eye on the stores and gas stations, to make sure the customer gets his money's worth. mildly interesting. I guess before they started officially checking up on businesses, companies were probably ripping people off left and right. Subplot with Johnny making wedding plans with Janet (Mae Clarke). a very small part of the film, to lighten things up. Shown on the Midnight Movies channel. It's okay. no big deal. Directed by John Blystone, who worked with Laurel and Hardy.... but died quite young at 45. heart attack. Story by James Grant... Grant had died in 1966, but earned so many credits after his death, right up to 2009!

morrison-dylan-fan With having been in the mood for the last week or so for an easy-going Film Noir,I decided,that due to having had a fun time seeing James Cagney combine espionage and Kung-Fu in the fun Blood on the Sun a while ago,that I would take a look at a Film Noir,that was Cagney's first indie production.The plot:Rushing to the hospital after hearing that Department of Weights & Measures head Joel Green has been hurt in a car crash,Weights & Measures officer Johnny 'Red' Cave is happy to find his boss alive,but is horrified to hear from Joel that he strongly suspects the 'accident' was an attempted mob hit. Realizing that he is going to be stuck to hospital for weeks on end,Green tells Johnny that he is officially making him head of the department.Deciding to show the gangsters which gang is really in charge,Cave begins going around the mob-run businesses and closing down all of the shady operations taking place on the premises. (which include chickens being filled with lead,so that the customer has to pay more when they are weighed on the scales.) Originally hoping that those in power would support his shakedown,Johnny soon discovers that the mob have their Weights & Measures going on in areas that he could never have guessed.View on the film:Leaving Warner Brothers behind due to feeling that he was getting nothing but the same scripts,James Cagney gives a good lively performance,but one which appears to be not stretching Cagney's (very good) acting ability to any great measure. Reuniting with Cagney after having a grape fruit whacked in her face,the very pretty Mae Clarke gives a delightful performance as Janet Henry,with Clarke showing Henry to be the only person who is attempting to keep Cave safely away from the mob.For the screenplay of the movie,writers James Edward Grant,Henry Johnson,Henry McCarthy and Harry Ruskin take their Film Noir in a terrifically off-beat direction,with the writers showing the Department for Weights & Measures to act more like the cops than the cops themselves ever do. Complimenting the off-beat Film Noir nature,the writers also give the title an extremely playful comedic streak which wraps round the movie on its sharp final note,as the mob discover what a great guy Johnny 'Red' Cave really is.

screenman Nothing dilutes Cagney's tough-guy persona, even this little B-movie lets him shine.He's a civil-servant with punch (literally) working on the front line to enforce weights & measures rules when it seems just about every other retailer is ripping the public off. We see some interesting little dodges as regards to lead weights placed in chickens (they're already dead!) rigged scales, petrol pumps & so on. It was a crooked world in 1930's America - or so it would appear. Basically he's scrupulously honest, won't take bribes, goes after everybody big and small; a sort of Elliot Ness of fair trade. Needless to say; he rubs a lot of people up the wrong way. It's a short movie at just 66mins, so the plot is inevitably shallow and the corruption sanitised with some slap-stick humour.Despite its age, it kept me watching. Being short, the plot moved at a quick pace. It's B/W, with all of the faults you might expect from an old un-restored print of this age, but it's clear enough in both sound & vision not to detract from enjoyment. My copy came as a 3-movie tough-guy offering on a single DVD, 4x3 format and PG rating.

lugonian GREAT GUY (Grand National, 1936), directed by John G. Blystone, is an interesting yet plausible low budget production starring none-other than James Cagney, the same James Cagney of the higher quality studio of Warner Brothers. What's a top actor like James Cagney doing over at Grand National instead of at the majors as MGM, Columbia, United Artists or even Paramount? Well, it had something to do with a contract dispute, which kept him away from his home lot for nearly two years. Since Grand National, not First National, initially began in early 1936, how fortunate for the studio to have acquired a top name like Cagney working for them? How unfortunate for the studio to have lost his services following his second with the studio, a musical titled SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT (1937). How fortunate to have Cagney return to his home studio where he truly belonged, and continue to work on films that were to become classics. As for those done at Grand National .... well, let's take a look at his initial offering of THE GREAT GUY. It's not a gangster film idolizing a popular crime boss but actually a crime story placing Cagney on the right side of the law attempting to rid corruption. Having done something similar the year before in G-MEN, the misfortune for GREAT GUY is not having much gun play nor fast-pace action to make this equivalent to a Warner Brothers production.The story opens with Joel Green (Wallis Clark), chief deputy of the Bureau of Weights and Measures, injured in a car crash, now in a hospital. Knowing the accident was a set up, Green calls for his friend, Johnny Cave (James Cagney), a former prizefighter working with the department of Weights and Measures, and assigns him in his place to acquire enough evidence on the corrupt district leader Marty Cavanaugh (Robert Gleckler). With the assistance of fellow Irishman Pat Haley, whom he calls Aloyisus (James Burke), Johnny teaches him the tricks of the trade of chiselers at the Paradise Market defrauding shoppers by exposing eights on chickens, putting false bottoms in baskets of strawberries, and cheating drivers of their gallons of gas. As for his love life, Johnny is engaged to Janet Henry (Mae Clarke), secretary to city official Abel Canning (Henry Kolker). Janet loves Johnny but finds him too conceited and quick tempered, but overall honest. Refusing to accept bribes even from the city Mayor (Douglas Wood), Johnny later has his work cut out for him by being abducted by hired thugs who frame him on a drunk and driving charge unless he gives up his investigation to expose the gang leader responsible for corruption.The supporting cast includes Edward Brophy (Pete Reilly); Bernadene Hayes (Hazel Scott); and Edward McNamara as Captain Pat Hanlon, whose great scene has him standing outside the door smoking his cigar while his pal Johnny takes care of the ring leader. The big surprise in GREAT GUY is the casting of James Burke, better known for playing cops, playing the dopey sidekick in the El Brendel tradition, sporting an Irish derelict compared to Brendel's Swedish one. This was one of the few opportunities seeing Burke in a sizable part typically suited for the likes of an Allen Jenkins or Frank McHugh.With all the ingredients of a Warner Brothers programmer, down to Joseph Sawyer (a Warners stock player) as one of the mobsters, what GREAT GUY lacks is polish and production values. Overall, GREAT GUY turns out to be a reunion of sorts between Cagney and Mae Clarke, his grapefruit victim from THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931), and co-star of LADY KILLER (1933) the one where he dragged her across the room by the hair. This time they are on friendly terms, as an engaged couple who gather together for lunch in a cafeteria and, with a touch of humor, talking things over at a furniture store with a salesman (Arthur Hoyt) trying to interest them with the display.Virtually unknown even by film buffs, GREAT GUY is one film in Cagney's filmography list that doesn't get a mention in his 1977 autobiography, "Cagney by Cagney," though his second Grand National starer did. Not until the age of video recording of the 1980s or late in the 1970s on commercial television has GREAT GUY been given some exposure. Circulating prints from 1980 and over suffer from being ten minutes shorter than its actual 75 minute release. Abrupt cuts are noticeable, especially one scene involving Mary Gordon as Mrs. Ogilvie and the corruption involving milk deliveries at the orphanage, found in current video, DVD and public TV late show broadcasts. While a complete version with clearer picture quality won't change GREAT GUY from its low-budget status in the Monogram Studios tradition to a Class "A" Warners production, but restoration will make a big difference on how to view this one, especially with the great guy himself, James Cagney. (***)