One of the saddest legacies of my heavy-drinking days is that I've half-seen or half-remember so many films. This is one of them. Watching it today I honestly couldn't tell if I'd seen it before in a stupor, or seen various parts of the film at various times. Or if it is just so quotable and influential that it is one of those films which is diminished because you've seen so much of it before, done in inferior ways by inferior film-makers.
The plotline is interesting but pretty generic (here's one of the ways that it could've been diminished, for all I know its ambiguous ending may have been a complete revelation in 1938), Michael Curtiz's direction is zippy but dated and the script is quotable but self-consciously so.
The big thing this film has going for it is the performances of its main players. James Cagney is in it. See? And he plays James Cagney better than he's ever played him before. Understand? It's a great performance, iconic and memorable. Pat O'Brien plays the tough part of the young hood-turned-priest convincingly. And Humphrey Bogart plays it deft and understated in the part of the slippery lawyer Frazier.
I liked a lot about watching this film- the basketball game is tremendous fun and the ending is very clever- but, for me anyway, it is less than the sum of its parts and I give it a 7/10.
