City For Conquest

City For Conquest is a urprisingly effective Warner Bros melodrama that manages to mix comedy and crime, boxing and high art in what is a kind a double-edged celebration of the American Dream when the Depression was still a living memory for film-goers.

James Cagney plays Danny Kenny, a tough little guy in early 1930s Lower East Side New York. An all-round good guy, he supports his  brother, Eddie (Arthur Kennedy), an aspiring classical composer and is crazy for the girl downstairs, Peggy (Ann Sheridan). All he wants to do is to drive his truck and settle down with Peggy, but she wants more. Danny’s only talent is for boxing so when his kid brother needs more dough for his tuition and the star-struck Peggy gets swept off her feet by sleazy dancer, Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn), he realises that he’s got to do more than just get by. T

he film commendably shows that living the dream isn’t as easy as dreaming it although ultimately it affirms the myth in an almost laughable and certainly hackneyed way with Eddie getting to perform his “story of a city” symphony (a knock-off of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue”) at Carnegie Hall. Sheridan is perfect as the girl-next-door although the film struggles to give her ambition much credibility, Cagney, perhaps a little too old for the role nevertheless plays it with feeling and Litvak with help of composer Max Steiner plays the sentimental card for all its worth. The result is an entertaining manipulation with some ambition to substance well realized that deserves to be better known. Danny’s gangster friend, Googie, is played by Elia Kazan who went on to be one of the leading directors of the 1950s.

Apparently the original release of the film had a prologue and epilogue in which a homeless man (played by Frank Craven) commented on the story. These and his occasional appearance during the course of the film have been elided, which goes someway to explaining its rather elliptical ending.

FYI: Danny’s gangster friend, Googie, is played by Elia Kazan who went on to be one of the leading directors of the 1950s.

 

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