Frank McHugh

1939

                           Film Facts

Raoul Walsh crafted this excellent film,with a newsreel like Documentery feel. Cagney was in a fine form as a returning vet who, unable to find work resorts to bootleging. Supported by a great cast that included Humphrey Bogart, Glady's George and Priscilla Lane as the good girl he loved. The finale with Cagney dying on church steps is a memorable moment. . 

" The Roaring Twenties, which to Mark Hellinger,as he expresses it in a foreword, is a "memory of the past" It has been skillfully, bitterly, vitally written by Mr. Hellinger... Cagney is ideally cast as a little tough guy with a heart of gold, and he comes through with another cracker-jack characterization, aided by Raoul Walsh's direction.

Irene Thirer, The New York Post