Wednesday 10 November 2010

The Roaring Twenties [1939]


More than a gangster movie and a social consciousness drama, The Roaring Twenties remains a nostalgic look back at the Depression and the Prohibition era, events that played immense roles in contemporary American history – politically, socially, and from the standpoint of arts. This movie also established Raoul Walsh as a first-rate and bankable filmmaker. This is a crisp, stylish and sentimental movie (though, thankfully, never saccharine or a tearjerker), and has at its heart the character of Eddie, played memorably by James Cagney – a legend of the gangster movie era. Eddie, a war veteran, returns home triumphant, only to find himself without a job. He tries to live honestly for a while, but it is only a matter of time before he decides to take the short-cut to success. And in films, as in life, luck runs only for so long. Meanwhile, he also finds it the hard way that the girl he loves doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. As the vicious cycle of life brings him back to from where his spectacular journey had begun, he gets one last shot at redemption – with the film culminating in a famous climax sequence that is sure to remind many Hindi film lovers of Deewars iconic last scene. The movie also had powerful turns from Humphrey Bogart, not a lead star yet, as the film’s cold and scheming antagonist, and Gladys George as a women silently in love with Eddie.

p.s. The Roaring Twenties is part of Humphrey Bogart: The Essential Collection, a wonderful boxset release by Warner Bros.








Director: Raoul Walsh
Genre: Crime Drama/Gangster Movie
Language: English
Country: US

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice Article very useful for me.Thank you

Shubhajit said...

Thanks, and you're most welcome.