James Cagney went to war... not literally, like, say, James Stewart, but at forty-years old and already an iconic movie star, once WW2 began, he put away his gangster garb and did only patriotic features...
And that's unfortunate, because the soldiers overseas would probably rather cheer Cagney on in another ROARING TWENTIES-style vehicle to simply get their minds off the war... but perhaps Cagney making war or patriotic pictures for those like him back home to remember the soldiers, risking their lives overseas...
Which continued even after the war, and in the case of his best wartime movie, 13 RUE MADELEINE, he fared much better in what's more a crime thriller in military garb, starting out a kind of propaganda documentary before the story unfolds...
And contrary to popular opinion, the best moments are actually in the first half, involving Richard Conte as a secret traitor/German spy bunked with good American boy Frank Latimore in an officer training headquarters, which is like a post-graduate boot-camp for O. S. S. Agents...
Conte's always good, whether playing good or bad, or in-between, like here... where the audience is unaware of his nefarious status until about twenty-minutes in when he learn along with Cagney, who basically oversees the young soldiers the way Lloyd Nolan and Robert Armstrong did his training to become one of the G-MEN ten-years prior...
Herein, the best scene is also the deadliest, and involves Conte and Latimore about to parachute out of an airplane into France... what happens will leave a chill down your spine as it's not over-scored or melodramatic... but realistic and bone-chilling...
Afterwards, Cagney becomes the star of the picture, traipsing around France, meeting up with resistance members, or the town's mayor (Sam Jaffe)...
Sadly, this is the point when Conte takes backseat, only appearing sporadically after being built-up as a buried lead while the urgency and suspense is cut in half... because it should have been more his picture all the way through...
He'd have made a great villain against Cagney but they hardly share any more screen-time at all.
And that's unfortunate, because the soldiers overseas would probably rather cheer Cagney on in another ROARING TWENTIES-style vehicle to simply get their minds off the war... but perhaps Cagney making war or patriotic pictures for those like him back home to remember the soldiers, risking their lives overseas...
Which continued even after the war, and in the case of his best wartime movie, 13 RUE MADELEINE, he fared much better in what's more a crime thriller in military garb, starting out a kind of propaganda documentary before the story unfolds...
And contrary to popular opinion, the best moments are actually in the first half, involving Richard Conte as a secret traitor/German spy bunked with good American boy Frank Latimore in an officer training headquarters, which is like a post-graduate boot-camp for O. S. S. Agents...
Conte's always good, whether playing good or bad, or in-between, like here... where the audience is unaware of his nefarious status until about twenty-minutes in when he learn along with Cagney, who basically oversees the young soldiers the way Lloyd Nolan and Robert Armstrong did his training to become one of the G-MEN ten-years prior...
Herein, the best scene is also the deadliest, and involves Conte and Latimore about to parachute out of an airplane into France... what happens will leave a chill down your spine as it's not over-scored or melodramatic... but realistic and bone-chilling...
Afterwards, Cagney becomes the star of the picture, traipsing around France, meeting up with resistance members, or the town's mayor (Sam Jaffe)...
Sadly, this is the point when Conte takes backseat, only appearing sporadically after being built-up as a buried lead while the urgency and suspense is cut in half... because it should have been more his picture all the way through...
He'd have made a great villain against Cagney but they hardly share any more screen-time at all.