'G' Men (1935)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Lawyer Brick Davis (James Cagney) is a fresh-out-of-school law graduate with no clients. When his old friend Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey) stops in town, he approaches Davis to become a 'G Man' - a member of a newly formed federal force that uses brains combined with brawn to make the perfect law enforcement. Davis isn't interested, but when Buchanan is shot dead by a gang of organised thugs, he joins up instantly, and begins to distance himself with his criminal clients. Upon arrival at the FBI recruitment centre, he knocks heads with his newly-appointed mentor Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong) who dislikes the amount of law graduates they are getting. When the gang that Davis left behind start to cause mayhem on a federal scale, Davis uses his knowledge and experience to bring the gang to justice.With all the Pre-Code mayhem that was taking over the cinemas back in the 1930's, people began worrying about the flattering, anti-hero portrayals that the criminal underworld were getting. Films such as the 1932 version of Scarface, and The Public Enemy (also starring Cagney) both showed them in a flattering light, so G-Men wanted to make the law cool again. Cagney's Brick Davis is very much like the villains portrayed in these films - he's ambitious, tough, intelligent - but he's also moral. The criminals, however, are portrayed as pure scum, and (in a quite shocking scene) capable of killing women without thinking twice. More of an FBI propaganda film than a film noir or a crime film, but it's easily watchable. Yet apart from a couple of bloody good shootouts and the odd surprise, the film never really grips and it does lack the usual bite from Cagney.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

"G-Men" is a 1935 film that was reissued in 1949. At that time, the FBI was 25 years old, and a scene was added where David Brian, as an FBI head honcho, tells his rookies that they are about to see an early film about the FBI. He then starts the movie."G-Men" is directed by William Keighley and stars James Cagney as Brick Davis, an attorney whose college friend Eddie (Regis Toomey) is murdered by a mobster (Barton MacLane) while working for the Department of Justice. Brick quits lawyering and joins the FBI. When the fact that he was close friends with a mobster (who put him through law school) turns up, Brick is able to supply a lot of information to the bureau.The action in this film is non-stop, with car chases, kidnappings, lots of shooting, and scenes at a lodge, reminiscent of a well-known real-life happening in Wisconsin.Cagney is excellent as usual, and Barton MacLane gives a strong performance as the enemy. Lloyd Nolan, as a fellow recruit, makes his film debut. The supporting actors are all good.Warner Brothers again proves why they were King of the Crime Flicks with this film. If you like Cagney and action, don't miss this one.

After playing a Gangster for the better part of four years, Cagney was allowed a curveball in 'G-Men'.Though not without a little prodding to the Warners, Jimmy turned the tables and finally portrayed the law, in one of the better F.B.I. films to this day.Breaking from his standard typecast, Cagney gets to show a little more range in a restrained lawman looking to use the law as his vehicle of payback.A great turn as well paced and scripted film.For Cagney fans or just old school movie lovers, bring the popcorn.

Until this movie appeared in 1935, Jimmy Cagney had played roles in which he was a con man or a gangster of some sort. The formula having grown a little weary, Warners put him in "G Men," in which he joins the FBI and pursues murderers and other people guilty of moral terpitude. Saw this for the first time tonight after having waited a good number of years and was satisfied but a little disappointed.What a cast -- Stu Erwin, Loyd Nolan, Robert Armstrong, Ann Dvorak (pronounced roughly "Dvor-zhock", like the composer, although her real name was McKim). Then there was Barton MacLane as a bad guy, Margaret Lindsay as a good girl. And the performances are about what you'd expect -- that is to say, pretty good, with the exception of Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" fame who would be better put to use as a traffic signal, only instead of "go", "caution", and "stop," he could transmit "surprise", "remorse," and "anger." Whatever happened to Ann Dvorak? She's unconventionally stunning, was a gay, sexy, recklessly clumsy dancer, had the biggest, most expressive eyes in the business, and -- as we all know -- the eyes are the windows of the hootchy cootchy.Lamentably, the story is a crazy quilt of barely related plots stapled together out of old scripts and recent newspaper clippings. It might have made a good comic book. You can pretty much tell from the moment they're introduced who's going to be toast. There's the personal animosity between Cagney and the gang he knows back home, some stuff that tries to capture the headlines of the early 1930s about Midwestern gangs, and a faux history of the FBI's reactive development. Scenes alternate between rather dull and talky, and speedy, unimaginatively staged ambuscades. I think the same car crashes through the same store window twice.I felt more nearly complete after having watched it. Cagney's performance alone makes it worth watching. He lacks some of his usual mannerisms, the shrug of the shoulders, the hitch of the pants, but he's bouncy and smart-alecky. It's only the narrative and the direction that seems lacking or leaden. I mean, after all, I waited about twenty years to see it, and I think the Warner Brothers owed me more than they delivered.