Good movie but grossly overrated

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

It seems odd this drama from Cagney's main star period would be obscure until you watch it.Cagney is dynamic as ever but those two cinematic black holes Margaret Lindsay and Donald Woods stop the film dead in its tracks whenever they appear in a scene.Lindsay, who Warners tried their damnedest to make into a star, is stiff and affected in the female lead. Her scenes with Cagney become more an interesting example of star quality and naturalism versus posturing for the camera than believable love scenes. In their close-ups he is animated and alive and she seems to be waiting for him to finish talking so she can flatly deliver her lines. Woods is even worse but his role is smaller so he is less irksome but when he's not on screen you don't miss him. As far as the film's storyline it's standard stuff about the clash between the Barbary Coast and Nob Hill society. If you're a Cagney fan it's worth checking out but one viewing will probably be enough.

Terrible title for a watchable Cagney vehicle, which seems like so many of his early films, to move at breakneck speed. Like so many of his major roles, there's a duality at play, with his Bat Morgan character initially winning viewer sympathy by fighting back against bullying gangsters in San Francisco's notorious "Barbary Coast" quarter and loyally looking out for his Jewish sidekick, only to be seduced by the lure of power and money to rise to the top of the greasy pole by being bigger and badder than the competition and getting on-side with the corrupt big-time politician Big Jim Daley.There's love interest too in the prim and proper person of Margaret Lindsay the managing editor of the crusading local paper, whose handsome daily editor Donald Woods serves as uneasy ally, love rival and straight-and-narrow example to Cagney, before invoking one of a series of murdered decent citizens which causes the law-abiding majority to turn to vigilantism in a literally riotous finish with Cagney naturally rejecting the dark-side and even getting the girl.How true the story here is to the growing pains of the real San Francisco, will have to wait until my next visit to the reference library, but the story suffers from Cagney's character whose rise and fall and rise again is too unlikely to seem credible. You feel a better, more straight-forward film would have concentrated on the zealous editor's story rather than Cagney's flawed hero. There also seem to be just too many characters, incidents and plot developments telescoped into the film's short playing time which the editing can't bring together coherently.For once I couldn't believe enough in Cagney's character and felt he gives an untypically mixed performance, although the problem here could be in the writing. Better are Lindsay as the posh proprietor who unconvincingly crosses the tracks for Cagney and Woods as the socially conscious but doomed editor Ford. The mob-scene finale calls for the marshaling of large crowds of actors which is accomplished believably and effectively, but in the end, the all-loose-ends-tied up optimistic ending let's down the preceding drama.For me this was a welcome chance to see the young Cagney in a rarely-screened film. To be fair it's just too fast-paced to really hang together though, better roles, better written and to be honest, better acted, lay ahead for him.

With most of James Cagney's early films, his character portrayal is generally a bit flamboyant, even over the top at times. In "Frisco Kid", it appears that Cagney found a way to take command of his role with some reserve, as his character rises from itinerant sailor to one of the most powerful men in San Francisco of the mid-1850's. He does it with both his fists and his charm, and at times it's easy to overlook the fact that he's the main villain in the story.The setting is the three block section of San Francisco known as the Barbary Coast at a time when the proper citizenry is just about fed up with the way the local underworld bosses rule their corner of the city. Early in the picture it appears that Bat Morgan (Cagney) might actually convert to the good guy side when he first meets Jean Barrat (Margaret Lindsay), managing editor of the San Francisco Tribune. But it becomes clear enough that they live on opposite sides of the tracks, even as Morgan's interest in Barrat becomes more than social.What makes the picture a bit troublesome for me is the lack of accounting for the story's chronology. While Morgan states that he'll build the biggest and most lavish gambling house in San Francisco, it seems like the 'Bella Pacific' virtually appears in the very next scene. His rise to the top of the Barbary underworld also seems like it happened overnight. Granted, the events are compressed for the sake of the story, but it's hard to imagine how all of a sudden, a sailor takes over an entire town just because he set his mind to it. One might also wonder why he hadn't done something more on a grand scale before arriving in San Francisco, but then I guess there wouldn't have been a movie.There were some interesting casting decisions made for the film, particularly Ricardo Cortez as the suave but menacing saloon owner Paul Morra. Barton MacLane appears as a roughneck named Spider Burke, and George E. Stone is effective as Morgan's best friend Solly Green. It was also cool to see a number of character actors that one usually finds in the era's Western pictures, like Addison Richards, Joe King and Fred Kohler.The one thing that struck me some time into the picture had to do with the story taking place in 1854. I had to keep reminding myself that it was still a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, with no context in the story as to what was taking place in the rest of the country. It was just a bit disorienting, especially when most of the scenes played out like they would have been from the latter part of the century.

Frisco Kid (1935) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The Barbary Coast in San Francisco is the setting in this story of Bat Morgan (James Cagney), the man who would become the countries first racketeer. This is a decent little film but there's not enough energy to keep things moving as well as it should. Cagney, with a funky little haircut, is in good form but this is certainly not one of his greatest roles. The supporting cast is in good form and includes Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Donald Woods and George E. Stone. Cortez steals the show as the top guy in town but Stone adds some very good comic relief as Cagney's buddy. The highlight of the film is a terrific fight sequence between Cagney and a large man with a hook for a hand. The final twenty minutes deal with the city getting tired of the thugs and deciding to take the law into its own hands. We get another mob scene where they want to hang the bad men and this here is where the film should have taken off but things stay pretty bland and never get too exciting.