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Taxi
An hour's entertainment for the boys in the now established golden hearted hoodlum manner of James Cagney.
Foundation of the tale [from the play by Kenyon Nicholson] is the strife of the independent taxi owner whom the syndicates run off the most desirable corner stands. This leads to the girl's father drawing a jail sentence when he shoots the truck driver he knows has purposely smashed his cab because he defied the leader of the strong arm squad. She's on her own after that, first battling with Cagney, then marrying him and finally trying to save him from killing this same leader.
Taxi! speeds along interestingly until near the finish, where the script cheats Cagney of his revenge and thereby saves him from prison. It's a scenario compromise which will leave the majority of fans unsatisfied.
Weaving through the plot is George E. Stone and Leila Bennett, as friends of the lovers, with Bennett doing an exceptionally good piece of work as a dumb, prattling waitress. Further player support is unimportant, although Dorothy Burgess convinces in doing the menace's moll.
Loretta Young does better than usual as the orphaned miss. At least there is more solidity to her portrayal than is generally so in her case.
The dialog is distinctly in the vernacular of the characters, director Roy Del Ruth has given it pace, and Cagney jauntily carries the major burden.
The director, incidentally, has also given the film a corking laugh start in Cagney conversationally rescuing a well-played old Hebrew from a cop.
Warner. Director Roy Del Ruth; Producer [uncredited]; Screenplay Kubec Glasmon, John Bright; Camera James Van Trees; Editor James Gibbon; Music Leo F. Forbstein
(dir.); Art Director Esdras Hartley
James Cagney... Matt Nolan
Loretta Young... Sue Riley Nolan
George E. Stone... Skeets
Guy Kibbee... Pop Riley
Leila Bennett... Ruby
Dorothy Burgess... Marie Costa
David Landau... Buck Gerard
Ray Cooke... Danny Nolan
from VARIETY 1932
My Dad 1922
Johnnie Walker ... Tom O'Day
Wilbur Higby ... Barry O'Day
Mary Redmond ... Mrs. O'Day
Ruth Clifford ... Dawn
Les Bates ... La Duee
Harry von Meter ... The Factor
Rin Tin Tin ... Rin Tin Tin
Convoy
The ship home safely from the sea has always been a warming image, but today it has been rendered infinitely more poignant, especially to Englishmen, by new and mortal perils waiting above and below the sea along the lanes traveled by the bottoms of British merchantmen. Out of those dangers—the whisk of a torpedo's wake, the sleek lines of an enemy raider breaking the fog, the reverberating fire of the big guns—and their threat to England's survival Michael Balcon has assembled "Convoy," now at the Rialto. And if the film fails in its frankly propagandistic mission it is because of spurious craftsmanship and because it is a little too self-consciously heroic. British seamen deserve a document more honest than this.
For Mr. Balcon has wandered away from the simple and moving story of getting home to England a group of cargo vessels assembled off the Norwegian coast. He has introduced the banal device of confronting the escort commander with a choice between duty and the love of a woman simultaneously in danger on a truant vessel. The authenticity of some actual shots at sea he has compromised by dovetailing them with scenes in which model cruisers and destroyers fight a furious but obvious duel in a studio tank. The actors, including Clive Brook and John Clements, are all so teddibly British in the face of grave danger that their calm becomes unconvincing. Put down "Convoy" as a film which melodramatically frittered away the possibilities of an epic idea.
CONVOY; screen play by Patrick Kirwan and Pen Tennyson; directed by Pen Tennyson; produced in England by Michael Balcon and released by RKO-Radio.
Captain Armitage . . . . . Clive Brook
Lieut. Cranford . . . . . John Clements
Capt. Eckersley . . . . . Edward Chapman
Lucy Armitage . . . . . Judy Campbell
Mabel . . . . . Penelope Dudley Ward
Mr. Matthews . . . . . Edward Rigby
"Shorty" Howard . . . . . Charles Williams
Commander Blount . . . . . Alan Jeaves
"Dot" . . . . . Michael Wilding
Lt. Commander Martin . . . . . Harold Warrander
Capt. Sandeman . . . . . David Hutcheson
Bates . . . . . George Carney
Knowles . . . . . Al Millen
Walker . . . . . Charles Farrell
Gates . . . . . John Laurie
Parker . . . . . George Benson
Minesweeper Skipper . . . . . Hay Petrie
His Mate . . . . . Mervyn Johns
Commander U-37 . . . . . Albert Lieven
Commander Deutschland . . . . . Hans Wengraf
Merchantman Skipper . . . . . Edward Lexy
Mate . . . . . John Glyn Jones
T.S. New York Times 17 January 1941
The Night of the Hunter
Robert Mitchum ... Harry Powell
Shelley Winters... Willa Harper
Lillian Gish... Rachel Cooper
James Gleason... Birdie Steptoe
Evelyn Varden... Icey Spoon
Peter Graves... Ben Harper
