jacobs-greenwood Directed by William Keighley with a screenplay by Seton I. Miller from a story by future Academy Award winning producer Darryl F. Zanuck (who earned his first Academy recognition with a Best Writing, Original Story Oscar nomination), this above average crime drama features James Cagney as a client-less lawyer turned 'G' (for government) man, an employee of the Department of Justice's bureau of investigation (to become the F.B.I.), for the purposes of helping to capture those responsible for killing his friend.Regis Toomey appears briefly as agent Eddie Buchanan, 'Brick' Davis's (Cagney) college friend who had tried to convince Davis to join the bureau before he was gunned down by (as it turns out) Brad Collins (Barton MacLane). Brick is acquainted with the culprit because he'd grown up in a rough New York neighborhood with Collins, and some other hooligans, before crime boss 'Mac' McKay (William Harrigan) had taken Brick under his wing and paid for his college education to give him opportunities he'd never had, which allows Brick to go straight.Unwilling to become a mouthpiece for other gangsters, when Buchanan is murdered, Brick signs up with the Dept. of Justice and is assigned to work for Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong), a tough taskmaster who refuses to admit that Brick has what it takes to succeed in the bureau, and is suspicious of the lawyer's earlier associations. Margaret Lindsay plays Jeff's sister Kay, who catches Brick's eye and interest. Lloyd Nolan plays agent Hugh Farrell, who helps Brick learn jujitsu and other self defense tactics. Mary Treen appears uncredited as a secretary.Because Brick grew up with Collins and the others, and knows (for instance) that Danny Leggett (Edward Pawley) has a penchant for fresh daily gardenias, he's soon involved in trying to capture Buchanan's killers. After Farrell is killed (Ward Bond appears uncredited as one of the culprits), Brick wins over McCord, and more slowly his sister, by helping to catch Leggett.Collins's wife Jean Morgan (Ann Dvorak), who Brick also used to know (they had a 'thing' for one another), inadvertently spills the beans that her husband and the rest of the wanted criminals are holed up in McKay's mid-Western lodge. This leads to a shootout during which the whole gang, save Collins, is shot dead or captured; McKay, who'd been their prisoner, is killed and Brick is injured.It takes a little longer to get Collins, who catches up with Jean while he hides out at Venke's (Harold Huber) garage, inexplicably long. But you know Cagney's character is going to get his man, finally earn McCord's respect, and win the girl in the end.The film was re-released in 1949 with a prologue and introduction (by an actor pretending to be an F.B.I. agent) that talks about the 25th anniversary of the bureau and the difficulties they had fighting crime during the gangster era because initially their agents couldn't carry guns, didn't have adequate firepower (e.g. machine guns) relative to the hoods, and couldn't even cross state lines to chase their quarry, having to work with local authorities in every state to apprehend them.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . James Cagney says at the end of G MEN. A self-described "street rat," Cagney's "Brick Davis" character has just succeeded in liquidating the final remnant of his two-dozen-member original extended family. Heap his college roommate "Ed" and his jujitsu training partner "Farrell" onto the pile, and you've got a funeral pyre stacked up halfway to Heaven. So it's no wonder Brick wants to jump on his chance to jump Nurse Kay, as he's become a walking magnet for high velocity lead, now that he's decided to stay with the soon-to-be FBI. G MEN hearkens back to the days of yesteryear, when Real Life criminals such as Clyde Barrow and John Dillinger had the Common Decency to die on the streets, rather than wasting U.S. taxpayer resources on trials, prisons, and costly executions. G MEN's story spans New York, Washington D.C., Missouri, Wisconsin, and Chicago. It features loads of antique music and cars. A penchant for strawberries may have done in Cagney in WHITE HEAT (as it did in Bogart in THE CAINE MUTINY), but gardenias get the bad guys here.

gavin6942 James "Brick" Davis (James Cagney) is a street-wise New York City lawyer who decides to join the US Department of Justice and become a G-Man after his friend Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), also a G-Man, is gunned down by mobsters.The concept that Davis had his law school tuition paid for by a guy "in the rackets" is clever, and as soon as he gets accepted by the FBI, he tells the guy about it. Even more surprising, the guy supports this decision, despite knowing that would make him and his associates a target. Such an odd relationship.The people behind the film sought the FBI's approval, particularly since they were fictionalizing real events. After the acceptance by J. Edgar Hoover, the partnership lead to the new beginning being tacked on in 1949 for the FBI's 25th anniversary. Today, the film is rarely (if ever) seen without the bonus segment.Because of its basis in real life, crime buffs will enjoy what they see and see it coming before the rest of the audience. At one point, rackets boss Mac (William Harrigan) plans to retire and start an inn in northern Wisconsin. The crime fans will see a veiled reference to the April 1934 shootout at Little Bohemia between Dillinger and the FBI, and this foreshadowing comes to fruition... (Harrigan, incidentally, was not a prolific actor and had last appeared on screen two years prior in "The Invisible Man".)This is classic Cagney. It may not be anything like what the real FBI was like in the 1930s (or 1920s, as the case may be). But it has Cagney being his punchy little self, this time on the side of the good guys. (Apparently Cagney wanted to be a "polished gentleman", but the studio wanted him to be a "mug" more like his role in "Public Enemy", and this was probably wise on the studio's part.)Professor Richard Jewell provides commentary on the DVD. He may not be the most eloquent speaker, but he is quite informed and knowledgeable in general. He could be more informed about the Kansas City Massacre, though.

zardoz-13 Bad boy James Cagney went legit in "Bullets or Ballots" director William Keighley's "G-Men," an exciting, 86-minute, black & white, crime melodrama about heroic F.B.I. agents waging America's war on crime in the early 1930s against notorious, cold-blooded gangsters. This gripping Warner Brothers picture represented "Public Enemy" star James Cagney's first foray as a good guy in a cops and robbers epic. The Production Code Administration and the Catholic Legion of Decency had finally clamped down on Hollywood studios and sought to curb excesses in sin, sex, and sensation. The censors deplored gangster pictures. They believed movies glamorized mobsters, and juvenile authorities feared impressionable children might sympathize with these hooligans. Consider the 1938 Cagney classic "Angels with Dirty Faces" as an example of the adulation with which juveniles treated a criminal who is scheduled to fry in the electric chair. Happily, swapping sides allowed Cagney as the hero in "G-Men" to triumph at fade-out and not die for his sins."G-Men" opens with a young attorney, Brick Davis (James Cagney of "Sinner's Holiday"), struggling to earn a living. When a client finally walks in, Brick knocks him out the door into the hallway. This unfortunate ward politician had offered our protagonist a shady deal if he would work with him. No sooner has Brick thrashed him than another materializes. The second goon turns out to be Brick's old friend, Edward 'Eddie' Buchanan (Regis Toomey of "Shadow of a Doubt"), and Eddie tries to recruit Brick for the F.B.I. Buchanan and he plan to get together after he nabs a mobster in town. Buchanan arrests the hood on a dark street after the mug leaves a meeting with three of the toughest thugs in town, Collins (Barton MacLane of "Black Fury"), Danny Leggett (Edward Pawley of "Thirteen Women"), and Duffee (Noel Madison of "Manhattan Melodrama"), in an upstairs apartment. Collins spots Buchanan and uses Leggett's rifle to cut Buchanan down. Actually, you don't see Buchanan get hit by the bullet. All we see is the shadows of the two men and Buchanan's shadow takes the bullet. The Production Code prohibited scenes of law enforcement officials dying on-screen and the use of shadows proved to be an excellent way to circumvent this problem. A grief-stricken Brick sees Buchanan's casket off at the train station. Afterward, Brick completes the F.B.I. application and becomes a rookie Fed. Brick visits the man who raised him from the gutter and paid for his education. Although he is one of the biggest bootleggers in New York City, 'Mac' McKay (William Harrigan of "The Invisible Man"), Mac has no problems with Brick's decision to join the Feds.In Washington, D.C., at F.B.I. Headquarters, Brick meets Agent Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong of "King Kong"), who is trying to persuade the F.B.I. Chief, Bruce J. Gregory (Addison Richards of "Our Daily Bread"), to put him into the field against Collins instead of assigning him to train the new agents. Gregory needs new agents fast and McCord is the best. Initially, Brick and Jeff get off on the wrong foot. Matters aren't helped when Brick slugs Jeff in the right eye during a boxing exhibition. Agent Hugh Farrell (Lloyd Nolan in his cinematic debut) teaches Brick a form of martial arts called Japanese jujutsu. This represented one of the earliest examples of martial arts in American films. Later, on the gunnery range, Brick impresses McCord with his accurate marksmanship. When McCord inquires about Brick's sharpshooting skills, our hero informs him that he was "marble-shooting champion" when he was a kid. Anyway, Brick helps McCord out when it comes to apprehending Leggett, but Leggett later gets away in what constitutes a reenactment of the Kansas City massacre. The chief difference between this massacre and the real thing was that the criminal died, too. What is important is that Hugh Farrell dies, making it the second F.B.I. agent to bite the dust. Meanwhile, McCord learns that Brick has ties to organized crime and confronts him with the evidence, but he gives him a chance to defend himself. McCord had agents shadow Brick when he met Mac on a train passing through town. Mac has quit the rackets and invites Brick to visit him at the lodge. Brick explains the mentoring role that Mac played during his troubled youth. McCord tears the papers to shreds that he was going to use against Brick. By this time, Brick has had his first encounter with McCord's gorgeous sister, Kay (Margaret Lindsay of "Baby Face"), who works as a hospital nurse. Naturally, Kay has no use of Brick.The censors were pleased with "G-Men" because it glorified the Feds rather than the gangsters. Shrewdly enough, Warner Brothers whitewashed one of the biggest F.B.I. blunders in the scene at the lodge that stands in for the real-life Little Bohemia raid that went awry. Most prints of this violent tale about bank robberies and kidnapping come with the 1949 introduction, but this prologue adds nothing in the long run except to commemorate Warner Brothers' shrewd thinking about producing a movie about the F.B.I before anybody else did. Mind you, J. Edgar Hoover saw to it that everything met with his approbation, and he relished the positive publicity that this super-charged saga delivered with machine guns, automatic pistols, revolvers, and shotguns blazing away. Clocking in at a lean 86 minutes, "G-Men" doesn't squander a single second in this snappy shoot'em up that chronicles the rise of the F.B.I. and the film reenacts at least one major crime, the Kansas City Massacre. The cast is first-rate and Keighley stages the action with panache. Basically, "G-Men" is the flip side of the 2009 crime movie "Public Enemies." John Dillinger, however, does not play a role in this movie about fictional heroes and hoodlums.