"Winner Take All" is initially most notable for the disturbing facial make-up of Jimmy Cagney, playing a boxer; for most of the movie, his nose is flattened and crooked, his ear is cauliflowered (although you probably wouldn't notice it if it wasn't mentioned), and he sticks his lips out in a way that helps physically manifest Cagney's character's stupidity and general insensitivity.
The boxing scenes are great, and would be quite convincing even in a later decade, never mind 1932. It really does seem like many hundreds of people have gathered together in an arena to watch Cagney fight. And he dances around with ease and grace, and is quite convincing as a gladiator of the squared circle (In one fight, Cagney and his opponent knock each other down, with Cagney winning the fight by barely getting up on his feet before the 10-count ends; isn't this how Rocky Balboa took the championship from Apollo Creed 45 years later?)
The most appealing scenes of the movie are in the beginning, when Cagney romances the pretty Marian Nixon at the desert health resort. Here, he courts Ms. Nixon with consideration and gentleness, and it is quite pleasing. It is therefore disappointing when Cagney turns out to be a rather dimwitted two-timer. He never really gets the glow back that he has in the first 15 minutes, and we never quite like him the same way again.
Unusual also for the time period is the good-sized role with many lines given to the African-American actor Clarence Muse. For once a black man is treated more or less with the same respect as the other characters, without that depressing over-obsequiousness normally demanded of black characters in Hollywood's early years.
And though his role is brief, Alan Mowbray, as Cagney's instructor of society manners, manages, as usual, to be hilarious with his mannered fastidiousness and what we might call exaggerated metrosexuality. He is one of my favorite character actors.
The film moves briskly through its quick 66 minutes, and even though the ending is somewhat sudden and unsatisfactory (Nixon is clearly Cagney's second choice for a wife; and he will marry her with a stolen ring intended for someone else), the world is still much better off with these quick films that Warner Brothers pumped out in joyfully large volumes in the truly golden film era of the 1930s.
The boxing scenes are great, and would be quite convincing even in a later decade, never mind 1932. It really does seem like many hundreds of people have gathered together in an arena to watch Cagney fight. And he dances around with ease and grace, and is quite convincing as a gladiator of the squared circle (In one fight, Cagney and his opponent knock each other down, with Cagney winning the fight by barely getting up on his feet before the 10-count ends; isn't this how Rocky Balboa took the championship from Apollo Creed 45 years later?)
The most appealing scenes of the movie are in the beginning, when Cagney romances the pretty Marian Nixon at the desert health resort. Here, he courts Ms. Nixon with consideration and gentleness, and it is quite pleasing. It is therefore disappointing when Cagney turns out to be a rather dimwitted two-timer. He never really gets the glow back that he has in the first 15 minutes, and we never quite like him the same way again.
Unusual also for the time period is the good-sized role with many lines given to the African-American actor Clarence Muse. For once a black man is treated more or less with the same respect as the other characters, without that depressing over-obsequiousness normally demanded of black characters in Hollywood's early years.
And though his role is brief, Alan Mowbray, as Cagney's instructor of society manners, manages, as usual, to be hilarious with his mannered fastidiousness and what we might call exaggerated metrosexuality. He is one of my favorite character actors.
The film moves briskly through its quick 66 minutes, and even though the ending is somewhat sudden and unsatisfactory (Nixon is clearly Cagney's second choice for a wife; and he will marry her with a stolen ring intended for someone else), the world is still much better off with these quick films that Warner Brothers pumped out in joyfully large volumes in the truly golden film era of the 1930s.
