James Cagney: celebrating the greatest screen actor of them all

I caught a few minutes of the decent 1947 wartime spy movie, 13 Rue Madeleine, on TV the other day. At least, I meant to catch a few minutes, but as always when a James Cagney film comes on, I couldn’t switch off. There is no other actor I’d prefer to watch.

Back in the late 1970s, when I did publicity for a publishing company, we secured the UK rights to Cagney by Cagney, the autobiography. The Parkinson production team said they would do anything – absolutely anything – to get this reclusive legend on the show. But no dice. The vertically-challenged, Hell’s Kitchen- born fighter and dancer had retired to his farm after starring in the Billy Wilder Cold War comedy, One, Two, Threein 1961, and he wasn’t going to budge for Johnny Carson, let alone Parky. (They got him on a few years later when he came out of retirement, briefly, to do Ragtime, on the advice of his doctor, following a stroke.) 

Without the presence of its author, the book enjoyed mediocre sales. To be honest, it wasn’t that rivetting: there was no juicy gossip, no personal revelations (except for some self-penned poetry, which was dire doggerel), and his taste in humour was fairly leaden. The fact that this one-time left-winger (twice accused of being a Communist) described himself in the book as a hippie-loathing arch-conservative didn’t help – then, as now, our media was controlled by socialists, and Cagney’s long drift to the right placed him well outside the hallowed circle of the liberally enlightened. (At a reception to launch the book, Barry Norman remarked to me “What a shame Cagney’s so right-wing” – assuming, smugly, that anyone working in publishing would be a solid Labour supporter.)

So, not a particularly interesting man on the surface, and a truly lousy poet. Not his only drawbacks: apart from his lack of height, he had received no formal training as an actor, made many undistinguished films, was no oil painting, deployed a limited range of very distinct physical mannerisms (which could easily have become irritating), could only play lower class characters, couldn’t do “period” or costume of any kind (for proof watch his oater, The Cisco Kid), he had a bizarre stiff-limbed, poker-up-the-arse dancing style, and his onscreen emotional range wasn’t exactly broad. 

But what this disparate package added up to was the greatest film actor there has ever been. Cagney is amphetamine on celluloid: in those few moments when he’s standing still, he’s exuding more energy than a bar-room brawl. And then some. He is always mesmerizing: even when playing good guys, he is a bristling mass of barely repressed violence. Even when standing still (which doesn’t happen often) he is more dynamic than a bar-room brawl. 

The secret to this little man’s colossal presence (it’s impossible to concentrate on anyone else when he’s in a scene) is, I think, dancing. He never leans back – he always seems to be on the balls of his feet, always heading forward, poised for attack (maybe he was wearing lifts?). Cagney is never relaxed – he is constantly on the verge of doing something physical, and it’s probably going to be violent. His unique dancing style (he was, of course, a brilliant and utterly original hoofer) underpins his acting: his muscles are taut, his limbs stiff, constantly ready to explode into action.  

Watch him walk – just walk – and you’ll see a dancer moving:  balanced, rhythmic, pulsing. Watch his every beautifully-timed, distinctive movement – everything looks natural, but you can tell he knows exactly what he’s doing. Just watch the sequence in White Heat when the deranged gangster, Cody Jarrett, who’s in prison, hears that his beloved mother is dead, or the first two and a half minutes from this scene from 13 Rue Madeleine – look at his arm movements during the briefing sequence and his forward-rolls in the gym.  Or the famous death scene  in The Roaring Twenties at the end of this clip – has anyone ever staggered and expired so balletically?

Yes, I know this sounds horribly pretentious – but I can’t think of any other way of explaining the effect this genius has on his audience. His energy floods through the screen into us: watching Cagney is a sit-forward experience.  And that may explain why we like him so much, no matter whether he’s playing a noble, truth-seeking reporter, a military hero, or a psychopathic killer - that, and the fact that he does a whole bunch of stuff to other people us blokes are occasionally tempted to do  (apart from beating up women, of course).

Not only that, but he kept impersonators in work for years - the best vocal example was captured in Stalag 17.

And of course, he performed the greatest death scene in movie history.

Only Spencer Tracy ran him close - but he wasn’t as good a mover.