Jim "Brick" Davis (James Cagney) is a struggling lawyer in New York City, despite his evident talents. Although local racketeer "Mac" McKay (William Harrigan) financed Davis's law school education, he wanted Davis to stick to the straight and narrow, and Davis is determined to do so in his practice, even though it costs him clients. An old childhood friend, Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), thinks the life of a federal agent might be a better fit for Davis, but it's not until Buchanan's death in the line of duty that Davis decides to join, hoping to avenge his old pal. During his training, Davis is put through his paces by his future supervisor, Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong), but Davis is determined to get the job, which he does. When the war on crime heats up, Davis is able to use his know-how of Mac's operations to successfully target his underlings. He also romances McCord's sister Kay (Margaret Lindsay), much to McCord's initial dismay. But as the clash between the law and the lawless intensifies, Mac's goons, particularly Brad Collins (Barton MacLane), aren't willing to go down without a fight.
James Cagney takes on the mob in G-Men, a glorified - but superbly entertaining - account of the FBI's war on organized crime. Like Bullets or Ballots (1936), G-Men was an attempt by Warner Bros. to keep making gangster movies without ticking off the Production Code Administration, let alone moral guardians. Part of the objection to these films was not only their supposed glamorization of the gangster lifestyle, no matter how ignominiously it might end, but also the role of law enforcement in them. Cops were either inept, overly hampered by legal red tape, or part of an overarching inability for society to deal with the problems that led people to pursue a life of crime. Depicting a heroic cop - or in the case of G-Men, an FBI agent - was a logical choice, while allowing studios like Warner Bros. to still make use of their roster of tough-guy stars like Cagney. The Public Enemy (1931) had already immortalized him in the annals of movie gangsters, to the point where he ended up typecast as fresh-talking tough guys, even when not playing a gangster character. His character in G-Men wouldn't break him away from that trend, but at least now he'd be a tough guy on the side of law and order. I've heard two different accounts of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's involvement in this film. Supposedly, he personally approved the script and had his men monitor the production to ensure accuracy. (He supposedly had a rivalry for publicity with the Treasury Department, and he saw G-Men as his opportunity to significantly one-up them.) On the other hand, I've also heard he objected to G-Men because of Cagney's undisciplined, reckless character, and he only changed his tune when it became a colossal hit at the box office. Does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? Is neither version true? I have no idea, and you're probably not here for such idle speculations, so let's dig into the movie itself! WARNING: Here be spoilers! Read further at your own risk! Jim "Brick" Davis (James Cagney) is a struggling lawyer in New York City, despite his evident talents. Although local racketeer "Mac" McKay (William Harrigan) financed Davis's law school education, he wanted Davis to stick to the straight and narrow, and Davis is determined to do so in his practice, even though it costs him clients. An old childhood friend, Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), thinks the life of a federal agent might be a better fit for Davis, but it's not until Buchanan's death in the line of duty that Davis decides to join, hoping to avenge his old pal. During his training, Davis is put through his paces by his future supervisor, Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong), but Davis is determined to get the job, which he does. When the war on crime heats up, Davis is able to use his know-how of Mac's operations to successfully target his underlings. He also romances McCord's sister Kay (Margaret Lindsay), much to McCord's initial dismay. But as the clash between the law and the lawless intensifies, Mac's goons, particularly Brad Collins (Barton MacLane), aren't willing to go down without a fight. G-Men lacks the substance of other gangster films from the 1930s that I've reviewed, such as Bullets or Ballots or The Roaring Twenties (one of my all-time favorite movies). However, it's a lot of fun to watch and re-watch - I've lost track of how many times I've seen it. It's a formulaic romp through and through, but a well-made one. The main ingredient in G-Men's success is, of course, Cagney's performance. Not the least bit hampered by having to play a good guy instead of a tough or a villain (which he'd had the opportunity to do before in movies like Picture Snatcher), he still has the same spark and energy audiences were used to. In fact, I'd argue that a role like this gives him even more opportunities to convey more emotional range, from mourning more than one death to conveying earnestness when sticking up for himself or a colleague. As for the supporting players' performances, they're a bit more uneven. King Kong star Robert Armstrong has some weak line delivery as Davis's gruff supervisor, but his acting is by no means bad. Margaret Lindsay, playing opposite Cagney for the third time, doesn't have all that much of a character to work with, unfortunately, going through the motions of being won over and then rescued by Cagney. She does her best with what she has to work with, and her best is pretty good, but the script just doesn't give her anything interesting to do. Her character is a plot device, nothing more. Ann Dvorak, however, has a more substantial role to play that lets her show off her acting chops. She may get less screentime than Lindsay, but she makes the most of it. William Harrigan gets to shine in his few scenes as the genial racket king, although I'd have liked to know more about how and why he came to mentor Davis. And Barton McLane can always be counted on to play a good heavy regardless of genre, as he does here as G-Men's main villain. Thanks to snappy dialogue and a solid screenplay that packs a lot in, G-Men makes the most of its 85-minute running time without dragging or feeling rushed. Even the scenes where Davis is learning about things such as criminal forensics don't slow the film down - they're long enough to deliver the info they need to, but short enough to not overstay their welcome. There aren't that many cinematic flourishes here, but a movie like this doesn't really need them. If you like action scenes, they're plentiful here, including a lengthy gun battle at a hunting lodge (per the rules of the Production Code, the gangsters couldn't be shown using machine guns, even though they were their weapon of choice) and an exciting showdown in a garage. G-Men was a colossal box office success, taking in over a million dollars against its production budget of $300,000 - big numbers in those days - and that was just in the US. Internationally, it took in almost another million. The critical reaction at the time was harsher, dismissing the thin storyline - one critic in Variety in particular went so far as to doubt this new approach to gangster films. Still, it obviously didn't keep audiences away, paving the way for similar efforts in the years to come, and continues to be held in high regard by critics. In 1949, as part of the FBI's 25-year anniversary, G-Men was re-released in theaters, with a new prologue added featuring a class of FBI new recruits being shown the movie as a part of their training. (Every home media release of G-Men includes this new prologue, which is unnecessary, but doesn't hurt anything.) If you're looking for pure entertainment, G-Men will certainly deliver, courtesy of a rock-solid Cagney performance and a script packed with witty banter and plenty of action. This is definitely one to see.
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