Georgetown, Pride of Penang.

An MGM presentation.

James . Fitzpatrick's Travel Talk

The Voice of the Globe. (the 1930s)

It is about how you earn them!

Public Enemy (1931)

The first time I watched James Cagney was when RTM screened 1942 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'. It narrated the biography of George M. Cohen, an American musical composer who in his later part of his life remained unknown. I vividly remember a scene where he stood incognito amongst the crowd looking at the band march by to the ecstatic youngsters singing to the tune. Little did the crowd know who was standing among them - the composer of the song, until he tells them his life story! That was another movie...

Well, this 1931 action movie is one of the early action movies which talks about the glamorous life of gangland and the downside too. From the outset, the director had warned viewers that the film does not glamorise hoodlums. Even though proclaiming to be of the contrary, the story was supposedly based on lifetimes of many baddies of that era.

James Cagney

The story starts in 1909 with the tale of two young boys grow up doing pranks and soon graduating to bigger crimes in life. Being in the Prohibition Era and all, they get drafted into smuggling booze and enjoying the high life. Everything has a price and it costs dearly. In between comes a family, a doting mother and a righteous brother who follows the virtuous road.

An interesting trivia that developed during the course of filming is that they director decided to switch the main two lead actors. The child actors who represent them were not switched, so you have the young actors with mannerisms and physique of the other at childhood. Another trivia is the famous grapefruit scene. It is supposed to mimic a gangster who threw an omelette at his girlfriend at breakfast table. In this film, the scene was unrehearsed and gave the actress a shock. It was meant to be that way!

The Grapefruit scene!

A memorable line from the flick, when two brothers are arguing on the money that Tom (the gangster brother, James Cagney) that he gives their mother. Mike, the elder one is a war veteran of WW1, is sceptical of the origin of Tom's wealth which is not from politics as he claimed but from bootleg. His success is from beer and blood. Tom, ridiculing his soldier brother says, "Your hands ain't so clean. You killed and liked it. You didn't get them medals for holding hands with them Germans."

Early talkies

Imitation of Life (1934)

This is the earlier version of the 1959's offering of the same name, based on a story written by Fannie Hurst in 1933. There were however, certain alterations to the story to pacify the sensitivity of the American public. As we all know, the blacks were lesser beings in US then and this story narrates a friendship between a white and black single lady struggling to stay alive and to tackle the identity crisis that the black lady's fair skinned daughter has who is ashamed of her African roots.
Bea Pullman (Claudette Colbert) is a widow who drags her suitcase from door to door trying to sell her pancake syrup, the business her husband used to do before his demise. She has a demanding but loveable 2year old daughter. Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers) accidentally lands at her house, wrongly, as she was looking for a job. One thing led to another and Delilah is offered to stay at Bea's home, taking care of her daughter while she work in return for a place to stay.

Louise Beavers - one of the pioneer black actors to set

the mold for others to follow. She reminds you of Mammy

(Hattie McDaniel), the maid in Gone with the wind (1939).

Fascinated with Delilah pancake, Bea decided to start a small restaurant with Delilah as the cook. Business prospers. Upon advice of a patron, Elmer, they decide to sell their pancake flour.
Time flies. They move up the ladder of prosperity. The girls have good education and Bea is the most talked about hostess of parties.
In comes Stephen Archer, an ichthyologist (a scholar in study of fishes) to one of these parties and love blossoms.
Fredi Washington acts as Delilah's daughter, Phoela. She cannot stand her mother's appearance and her black school. The later part of the movie deals with the showdown between Delilah and Phoela as well as between Bea and her daughter, Jessie who falls for Stephen!
In the end, Bea decides not to wed Stephen for her daughter's sake. Delilah dies and Peola returns to the fold of the family.
I was surprised that in 1934, they had already released talking movies (talkies). In fact, commercial production of talkies went as far as 1920s.
Claudette Colbert, the heroine, had a very successful acting career that lasted till the 1980s! (1919 all the way to 1987!) Lousie Beavers was such a loveable character. Fredi Washington, as her daughter, went on to be a civil right worker.