CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)

Fast-paced, interesting urban drama with a great cast. James Cagney plays a guy from the tenements who boxes on occasion to raise money to help out his brother (Arthur Kennedy), a music teacher who has aspirations to write a great symphony about New York City. Cagney has faith in his brother and doesn't want him doing manual work or cheapening his talent by writing pop music. Ann Sheridan is Cagney's girl who wants to be a dancer; soon, she's partnered with Anthony Quinn, who traps her in a contract for ballroom and professional dancing. They make names for themselves on the club circuit but she's unhappy away from Cagney. Meanwhile, Cagney is "discovered" by boxing promoter Donald Crisp and has a rapid rise in the sport under the name Young Sampson (though, truth be told, Cagney, at 41, looks a bit long in the tooth to be billed as "young"). With Kennedy and Sheridan in mind, Cagney makes a lot of money at boxing, but ends up blinded when an unscrupulous opponent puts resin powder on his gloves. Will he reunite with Sheridan? Will his brother's symphony get heard by the public? A melodramatic but satisfying ending reveals all.

The plot sounds awfully cliche, but the film moves quickly (until a little bit of sagging at the end). The actors are all fun to watch, including the unusually large supporting cast: Frank McHugh is Cagney's buddy (as he was in real life); Lee Patrick is a dancer; Elia Kazan is a ghetto pal of Cagney's who makes it big but winds up bumped off; Blanche Yurka is Sheridan's mother; Jerome Cowan and Frank Faylen have small roles. There are a couple of boxing beefcake shots early on, and I chuckled at a line from Crisp to Cagney: "I had a hunch about you from the minute I saw you strip down." There's a tenement dance hall scene that is well shot and reminded me a bit of the way "America" is staged in WEST SIDE STORY. Snippets of "42nd Street" and "Lullaby of Broadway" can be heard in the background of a couple scenes. The symphony that Kennedy writes is a second-rate imitation of Gershwin, but that's the only complaint I have for this movie. [TCM]