City for Conquest
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by John Wexley from the novel by Aben Kandel
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Danny Kenny: [Started, after getting bussd on the cheek from Eddie] Say, what am I… a French general getting a message or somethin’?[/box]
This is an OK Warner Brothers urban social drama with an outstanding cast.
The city is New York and the whole story is framed by a narrator, a la Our Town. Danny Kenny (James Cagney) is a regular guy whose aim in life is to marry his sweetheart Peggy (Ann Sheridan) and hold down a steady job as a truck driver. But Danny is also a talented amateur boxer and feels forced into the professional ring to help his brother Eddie (Arthur Kennedy in his screen debut), a budding composer, get through music school and finish his symphony. Peggy has ambitions as a dancer and puts her love for Danny on hold to try to make the big time with sleezeball partner Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn). It takes a tragedy to set her straight. With Frank McHugh as Danny’s sidekick, Donald Crisp as his manager, and Elia Kazan in one of his two screen appearances as an actor as his gangster pal.
Everybody in this movie is just great but the plot takes itself a little too seriously for me to come back a second time. Worth seeing once, though, if just to see Quinn, Kazan, and Kennedy as young men. It goes without saying that Cagney and Sheridan are top-notch.
Trailer
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