James Cagney - Return To Warner Bros. (1938–1942)

Return To Warner Bros. (1938–1942)

Cagney's two films of 1938, Boy Meets Girl and Angels with Dirty Faces, both costarred Pat O'Brien. The former saw Cagney in a comedy role, and received mixed reviews. Warners had allowed Cagney his change of pace, but was keen to get him back to playing tough guys, which was more lucrative. Ironically, the script for Angels was one that Cagney had hoped to do while with Grand National, but the studio had been unable to secure funding.

Cagney starred as Rocky Sullivan, a gangster fresh out of jail and looking for his former associate, played by Humphrey Bogart, who owes him money. While revisiting his old haunts, he runs into his old friend Jerry Connolly, played by O'Brien, who is now a priest concerned about the Dead End Kids' futures, particularly as they idolize Rocky. After a messy shootout, Sullivan is eventually captured by the police and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Connolly pleads with Rocky to "turn yellow" on his way to the chair so that the Kids will lose their admiration for him, and hopefully avoid turning to crime. Sullivan refuses, but on his way to his execution, he breaks down and begs for his life. It is unclear whether this cowardice is real or just feigned for the Kids' benefit. Cagney himself refused to say, insisting he liked the ambiguity. The film is regarded by many as one of Cagney's finest, and garnered him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for 1938. He lost to Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. Cagney had been considered for the role, but lost out on it due to his typecasting. (He also lost the role of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne in Knute Rockne, All American to his friend Pat O'Brien for the same reason.) Cagney did, however, win that year's New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.

His earlier insistence on not filming with live ammunition proved to be a good decision; having been told while filming Angels with Dirty Faces that he would be doing a scene with real machine gun bullets, Cagney refused and insisted the shots be added afterwards. As it turned out, a ricocheting bullet passed through exactly where his head would have been.

During his first year back at Warners, Cagney became the studio's highest earner, making $324,000. He completed his first decade of movie-making in 1939 with The Roaring Twenties, his first film with Raoul Walsh, and his last with Bogart. It was also his last gangster film for ten years. Cagney again received good reviews; Graham Greene stated that "Mr. Cagney, of the bull-calf brow, is as always a superb and witty actor". The Roaring Twenties was the last film in which Cagney's character's violence was explained by poor upbringing, or their environment, as was the case in The Public Enemy. From that point on, violence was attached to mania, as in White Heat. In 1939, Cagney was second to only Gary Cooper in the national acting wage stakes, earning $368,333.

His next notable role was George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy, a film Cagney "took great pride in" and considered his best. Producer Hal Wallis said that having seen Cohan in I'd Rather Be Right, he never considered anyone other than Cagney for the part. Cagney, on the other hand, insisted that Fred Astaire had been the first choice, but turned it down.

Filming began the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the cast and crew worked in a "patriotic frenzy" as the United States' involvement in World War II gave the cast and crew a feeling that "they might be sending the last message from the free world", according to actress Rosemary DeCamp. Cohan was given a private showing of the film shortly before his death, and thanked Cagney "for a wonderful job". A paid première, with seats ranging from $25 to $25,000, raised $5,750,000 for war bonds for the US treasury.

"Smart, alert, hard-headed, Cagney is as typically American as Cohan himself... It was a remarkable performance, probably Cagney's best, and it makes Yankee Doodle a dandy"

Many critics of the time and since have declared it to be Cagney's best film, drawing parallels between Cohan and Cagney; they both began their careers in vaudeville, struggled for years before reaching the peak of their profession, were surrounded with family and married early, and both had a wife who was happy to sit back while he went on to stardom. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, including Cagney's for Best Actor. In his acceptance speech, Cagney said, "I've always maintained that in this business, you're only as good as the other fellow thinks you are. It's nice to know that you people thought I did a good job. And don't forget that it was a good part, too."