The Roaring Twenties

A gangster film set in America. The last days of the First World War. Three men meet in a trench: Eddie, George and Lloyd. The war ends and they come home. Eddie cannot get his old job back. His place at the garage has been given to someone else. He becomes a taxi driver. One day he carries a package. There is bootleg liquor in it and Eddie is arrested. When he comes out he has learned the trade. From there the film is a story of ascent. A fleet of cabs, a warehouse, a distribution network and an organisation that keeps growing. It is Prohibition. Selling drink is a crime in the country and that is exactly why it is an industry. George turns up again. He was ruthless in the war and he is ruthless now. Lloyd has become a lawyer. He handles Eddie's affairs and does not like it. There is Jean as well. Eddie is in love with her; she loves Lloyd. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but a period: the film ties one man's story to the country's decade, and the newsreel-style narration cutting in does that openly. When Prohibition ends everything ends. Eddie's business becomes pointless and he is ruined in the market as well. The last scene takes place on the steps of a church and is among the most quoted endings in American cinema. The story is by the journalist Mark Hellinger, who had written about this world in New York in the twenties. James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart worked together rarely after this. James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George and Jeffrey Lynn are in the cast. Raoul Walsh directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic Warner gangster films and Cagney. Who it is not for: anyone looking for complex character; the narrative moves fast and skips its connective tissue with montage.