The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Director:

Raoul Walsh

Writers:

Jerry Wald (screen play) &
Richard Macaulay (screen play) ...
(more)

Release Date:

23 October 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The land of the free gone wild! The heyday of the hotcha! The shock-crammed days G-men took ten whole years to lick!

Plot:

Three men attempt to make a living in Prohibitionist America after returning home from fighting together in World War I.

Plot Keywords:

Prohibition | Lawyer | Money | Gun | Speakeasy

Awards:

1 win

Cast

James Cagney	...	Eddie Bartlett
Priscilla Lane	...	Jean Sherman
Humphrey Bogart	...	George Hally
Gladys George	...	Panama Smith
Jeffrey Lynn	...	Lloyd Hart
Frank McHugh	...	Danny Green
Paul Kelly	...	Nick Brown
Elisabeth Risdon	...	Mrs. Sherman (as Elizabeth Risdon)
Edward Keane	...	Henderson (as Ed Keane)
Joe Sawyer	...	The Sergeant
Joseph Crehan	...	Michaels
George Meeker	...	Masters
John Hamilton	...	Judge
Robert Elliott	...	First Detective
Eddy Chandler	...	Second Detective (as Eddie Chandler)
Abner Biberman	...	Henchman
Vera Lewis	...	Mrs. Gray
John Deering	...	Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eddie Acuff	...	Cabbie (uncredited)
Ernie Alexander	...	Bootleg Customer (uncredited)
Murray Alper	...	Fletcher's Mechanic (uncredited)
Robert Armstrong	...	Hatted Passerby Before Nightclub (uncredited)
Raymond Bailey	...	2nd Ex-Con (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
James Blaine	...	Club Doorman (uncredited)
Max Blum	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Wade Boteler	...	Policeman in Speakeasy (uncredited)
Harry C. Bradley	...	Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Al Bridge	...	Ship Captain (uncredited)
Paul Bryar	...	Gangster (uncredited)
Nat Carr	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Glen Cavender	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Clay Clement	...	Bramfield (uncredited)
Ann Codee	...	Saleswoman (uncredited)
James Conaty	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Ray Cooke	...	Orderly (uncredited)
Calvin Coolidge	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Charles Corrigan	...	(uncredited)
Maurice Costello	...	(uncredited)
Kernan Cripps	...	Cop (uncredited)
Alan Davis	...	Vermont Man in Speakeasy (uncredited)
Sayre Dearing	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Joe Devlin	...	Order-Taker (uncredited)
Robert Dobson	...	Lieutenant (uncredited)
Bill Elliott	...	Bootlegger (uncredited)
James Flavin	...	(uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Curt Furburg	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Fred Graham	...	Henchman (uncredited)
Creighton Hale	...	Customer (uncredited)
Bert Hanlon	...	Pianist (uncredited)
Carl Harbaugh	...	Street-Cleaner (uncredited)
Sam Harris	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
John Harron	...	Soldier (uncredited)
Eddie Hart	...	Store Doorman (uncredited)
Lew Harvey	...	3rd Ex-Con (uncredited)
Oscar 'Dutch' Hendrian	...	First Mate (uncredited)
Al Herman	...	Gorman Gin-Taster (uncredited)
Herbert Heywood	...	Pop (uncredited)
Al Hill	...	1st Ex-Con (uncredited)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Harry Hollingsworth	...	(uncredited)
Stuart Holmes	...	Taxi Passenger (uncredited)
Herbert Hoover	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
George Humbert	...	Luigi (uncredited)
Lloyd Ingraham	...	Official in Montage (uncredited)
Jane Jones	...	Singing Trio Member (uncredited)
Mel Kalish	...	Singing Trio Member (uncredited)
Don Thaddeus Kerr	...	Bobby Hart (uncredited)
Donald Kerr	...	Cabbie (uncredited)
Milton Kibbee	...	Cabbie (uncredited)
Reid Kilpatrick	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Mike Lally	...	Gangster (uncredited)
Alfred Linder	...	Foreman (uncredited)
George Lloyd	...	Singing Trio Member (uncredited)
Arthur Loft	...	Still Proprietor (uncredited)
Charles Marsh	...	Timid Man (uncredited)
Frank Mayo	...	(uncredited)
King Mojave	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Philip Morris	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Jack Mower	...	Guard (uncredited)
Benito Mussolini	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Wendell Niles	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Field Norton	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Jack Norton	...	Drunk at Henderson Club (uncredited)
Wedgwood Nowell	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Pat O'Malley	...	Jailer (uncredited)
Oscar O'Shea	...	(uncredited)
David Oliver	...	(uncredited)
Emory Parnell	...	(uncredited)
William Pawley	...	Cabdriver (uncredited)
Lee Phelps	...	Bailiff (uncredited)
Paul Phillips	...	Mike (uncredited)
John J. Richardson	...	Sleeping Train Passenger (uncredited)
John Ridgely	...	Cabbier at Grand Central (uncredited)
Cyril Ring	...	Charlie (uncredited)
Warren Rock	...	Gangster (uncredited)
Franklin D. Roosevelt	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Don Rowan	...	Gangster (uncredited)
Hector Sarno	...	Warehouse Boss (uncredited)
Cliff Saum	...	Train Conductor (uncredited)
Jeffrey Sayre	...	Order-Taker (uncredited)
Bruce Sidney	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
John St. Clair	...	(uncredited)
Charles Sullivan	...	Freighter Crew Member (uncredited)
Elliott Sullivan	...	Eddie's Cellmate (uncredited)
Westbrook Van Voorhis	...	Narrator (uncredited)
Max Wagner	...	(uncredited)
Billy Wayne	...	Cabbir at Grand Central (uncredited)
Ben Welden	...	Tavern Proprietor (uncredited)
Dick Wessel	...	Fletcher's Mechanic (uncredited)
Leo White	...	Nightclub Patron (uncredited)
Frank Wilcox	...	Cabbie at Grand Central (uncredited)
Lottie Williams	...	Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Norman Willis	...	Bootlegger (uncredited)
Charles C. Wilson	...	Policeman (uncredited)

Directed by
Raoul Walsh

Writing credits
Jerry Wald		(screen play) &
Richard Macaulay		(screen play) and
Robert Rossen		(screen play)
Mark Hellinger		(from an original story by)
Earl Baldwin		contributor to screenplay construction (uncredited)
Frank Donoghue		contributor to screenplay construction (uncredited)
John Wexley		contributor to treatment (uncredited)

Produced by
Samuel Bischoff	....	associate producer
Hal B. Wallis	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Ray Heindorf		(uncredited)
Heinz Roemheld		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Ernest Haller		(director of photography) (as Ernie Haller)

Film Editing by
Jack Killifer		(film editor)

Art Direction by
Max Parker

Makeup Department
Perc Westmore	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Jack L. Warner	....	in charge of production

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Richard Maybery	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Everett Alton Brown	....	sound (as E.A. Brown)

Special Effects by
Edwin B. DuPar	....	special effects (as Edwin Du Par)
Byron Haskin	....	special effects

Stunts
Fred Graham	....	stunts (uncredited)
Mike Lally	....	stunts (uncredited)
Harvey Parry	....	stunts (uncredited)
Charles Sullivan	....	stunts (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Milo Anderson	....	wardrobe
Eugene Joseff	....	costume jeweller (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Don Siegel	....	montage (uncredited)

Music Department
Leo F. Forbstein	....	musical director
Ray Heindorf	....	orchestral arrangements
Max Steiner	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Other crew
Hugh Cummings	....	dialogue director
Virginia Moore	....	script girl (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Warner Bros (presents) (as Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.) (A Warner Bros. Picture)

Distributors

• Warner Bros (1939) (USA) (theatrical)
• CBS/Fox Home Video (1984) (USA) (VHS)
• Key Video (1984) (USA) (VHS)
• MGM Home Entertainment (198?) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• AAA Classics (????) (France) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Living Colour Entertainment (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2005) (Finland) (DVD)
• TV3 (1990) (Finland) (TV)
• Warner Home Video (2010) (Canada) (DVD) (4 film collection)
• Warner Home Video (2005) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2010) (USA) (DVD) (4 film collection)
• Warner Home Vídeo (2005) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1984) (2009) (Finland) (TV)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

106 min (Turner library print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #5576) | Australia:G | Australia:PG (TV rating) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-15 (2005) | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Stage 19, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros

Trivia:

The character of Panama Smith was partially based on actress and nightclub hostess Texas Guinan.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: (at around 1 min) As the former sergeant (now a security guard) is locking up a gate after letting a car pass, the background is clearly a painted set (including phony light fixtures in 2-D).

Quotes:

Eddie Bartlett:You always said you were going to take real good care of me, didn't you George?
George Halley:Wait a minute Eddie, I can explain!
Eddie Bartlett:Here's one rap you ain't gonna beat!
[fires twice]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Never Sleep Again: The Making of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

My Melancholy Baby

He Used To Be A Big Shot

It is not as centrally dynamic as THE PUBLIC ENEMY nor as Freudian as WHITE HEAT, but THE ROARING TWENTIES is a leading gangster film for Jimmy Cagney as it details the rise and fall of a gangster Eddie Bartlett. The product of World War I and Prohibition, Eddie rises to great power as the head of a gang, always trying to return to legitimate society, and then to fall again due to the Wall Street Crash and the machinations of his right-hand man George Hally (Humphrey Bogart).

Both men's characters are far more subtle as studies of success in criminal enterprise than the normal crime bosses of the 1930s. Eddie painstakingly builds up a taxicab corporation to gain legitimacy, as well as his stock acquisitions. Bogart, a bit more realistic on what types of businesses he understands, does not get involved in the stock market. But he enjoys the trappings of the upper class. Witness the scene when he is talking with his underling (Abner Biberman) and he is practicing his putting in his office. At the conclusion, Bogart is living in a townhouse (a sign of his financial success).

There is a tradition in the films of the depression that some gangsters are not as bad as others. This is not to be taken seriously in real life, but the idea is that certain people are driven to crime by economic circumstances (Cagney returning to no job at the end of World War I) and some are driven by pure evil (the sadistic side of Bogart's nature). Cagney, on his rise, gains the friendship of people like Gladys George (actually the unrequited love of Ms George) and tries to find room in his organization for people like Frank McHugh, a nice guy who really never fit in properly as a criminal - and dies as a result. Bogart gains the support of like villains (Bibberman, who shares Bogie's fate at the end), and keeps showing a contempt for human life in most of the film (witness how he kills a cop on one of the rum runners he and Cagney are on, because the cop was once his sergeant in the army who punished him for breaking the rules when he did). But Cagney turns out to have more guts in him than Bogie. At the end of the film the latter, facing his own demise, turns into a total coward.

The film has many touches to set the tone of the 21 years it covers (1918 - 1939). At the start newsreel footage takes the audience back to the end of World War I, showing Presidents and events up to Wilson (who, curiously enough, is shown by an actor playing the President, not as part of an old film). It has been noted that Gladys George's Panama is based on Texas Guinan, the speakeasy hostess. The death of Cagney on the steps of a church is based on the death of Hymie Weiss, a Chicago gangster rival of Capone who was killed that way in 1927. It was too good a death to not use in a gangster film, as it seems more symbolic than it was in real life (it does remind us of how Cagney, for all his good intentions, came up short due to his profession in violence).

I have not commented on the love triangles involving Cagney, Jeffrey Lynn, and Priscilla Lane (and Cagney, Lane, and Gladys George). The irony that Cagney never sees that George is more than just a good friend is rather poignant, for both of them. And it is George who cradles his dead body in the end and gives his epitaph. Perhaps today a director would allow Cagney to wise up and get away with George. But that would spoil the full effect of the film's conclusion.