The Roaring Twenties (1939)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Raoul Walsh

Writers:

Jerry Wald (screenplay) &
Richard Macaulay (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

23 October 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The land of the free gone wild! The heyday of the hotcha! The shock-crammed days G-men took ten whole years to lick!

Plot:

After the WWI Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging...

Plot Keywords:

Prohibition | Lawyer | 1920s | WWI | Murder

US TV Schedule:

Mon. Nov. 16

8:00 PM

TCM

Cast

James Cagney	...	Eddie Bartlett
Priscilla Lane	...	Jean Sherman
Humphrey Bogart	...	George Hally
Gladys George	...	Panama Smith
Jeffrey Lynn	...	Lloyd Hart
Frank McHugh	...	Danny Green
Paul Kelly	...	Nick Brown
Elisabeth Risdon	...	Mrs. Sherman (as Elizabeth Risdon)
Edward Keane	...	Henderson (as Ed Keane)
Joe Sawyer	...	The Sergeant
Joseph Crehan	...	Michaels
George Meeker	...	Masters
John Hamilton	...	Judge
Robert Elliott	...	First Detective
Eddy Chandler	...	Second Detective (as Eddie Chandler)

Also Known As:

The World Moves On (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG (TV rating) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #5576) | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

After the release of this film, producer Mark Hellinger received a telegram from New York that read: "We are all sitting here in the Stork Club discussing your new picture. We are glad The Roaring Twenties (1939) rates four stars and we wish we could be present to give you the remaining four-four. We love you. Walter Winchell, Louis Sobol, Damon Runyon, Rudy Vallee, Eddie Dowling, George M. Cohan, Sam Harris, Frank Buck, Buddy G. DeSylva, James J. Walker, Ted Husing, Ricardo Cortez, Sidney Clare, Bert Wheeler, Bert Lahr, Marc Lachmann, Clem McCarthy, Mack Gordon, Curley Harris, Jay C. Flippen, Dan Parker, Murray Lewin.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Eddie goes to the garage to ask for his old job back, he addresses the boss as "Mr. Fletcher". But on the closing cast list, the character (played by Joseph Crehan) is credited as "Michaels".

Quotes:

George Halley: [while running across the battlefield ablaze with an artillery barrage in progress, Eddie has just dived into a gaping shell hole for cover. He practically lands on top of another soldier who is already in the crater] Now, do you always come into a rat hole like that?
Eddie Bartlett: What do you want me to do, knock?

Movie Connections:

Featured in 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year (2009) (TV)

Soundtrack:

It Had to Be You

In this movie, Bogart proves to be the sneering, sadistic gangster…

After nearly a decade of concentrating on the gangster period of the twenties, it appeared that Warner Brothers had decided to make one, final glorified kiss-off to the genre in the spectacularly staged "The Roaring Twenties."

Director Raoul Walch was an odd choice for what turned out to be a first-rate action film, for Walsh was not normally a crime-film director… The film contained every possible cliché connected with the era…

Bogart's portrayal was interesting as we watched him coldly murder an ex-army sergeant who had given him a rough time in the service, and then set put to get rid of Jeffrey Lynn, now a successful lawyer working for the district attorney and intent on crushing Bogart's empire…

Cagney, whose energy gave him a panerotic sexual magnetism, was evident with his two relationships which both tend to increase our valuation of Cagney as a person as are the two ladies involved: Priscilla Lane, the innocent whom Cagney helps and loves, and the experienced Gladys George who is evidently devoted to him but never expresses her feelings to him…

This basic relationship between Cagney and the two female characters does not take away the great merit of "The Roaring Twenties"—much more it proves the skill of Raoul Walsh and the writers in deploying conventional elements in an effective and meaningful way…