James Cagney
During his career, Bob Hope was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment. American Masters explores the entertainer’s life through his personal archives and clips from his classic films.
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year is a once-over-lightly evocation of a slate of classic films unmatched before or since. In a year permitting 10 Best Picture nominees, the final cut included Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Love Affair. Shut out: The Roaring '20s, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Intermezzo, Destry Rides Again, Idiot's Delight, Young Mr. Lincoln, Gunga Din. This hour-long film finds room to acknowledge a few of these non-starters, but its brevity means a lot gets left out. This includes the absence of anything that doesn't celebrate the studio system, including the practices of the shrewd tyrants who ran them, seen in brief archival footage.
Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.
Produced for Turner Classic Movies, this documentary looks at the early days of the gangster film.
Recut of the miniseries "Billy, How Did You Do It?": In 1988, Oscar-winning German filmmaker Volker Schlondorff ("The Tin Drum") sat down with legendary director Billy Wilder at his office in Beverly Hills, California and turned on his camera for a series of filmed interviews. The conversation went on for two weeks. The results were aired on German TV in 1992 and debuted on U.S. television when it was shown on Turner Classic Movies in 2006. We are presented with a generous smattering of film clips, rare photographs and artwork, but mostly Wilder just sits in his office and talks with the off screen Schlondorff, moving easily between English and German.
A look at actresses who starred in films with thought-provoking subjects made between 1930 and July 1934, before the Hollywood Production Code —the infamous Hays Code— was enforced.
Fred Astaire, known for his dazzling dance work in scores of memorable films and on television, is honored at this ninth celebration of the American Film Insitute's recognition of screen artists through the bestowal of its Life Achievement Award. The program was taped at a black-tie testimonial dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on April 10, 1981.
A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from it's orgins after the invention of the movie camera, over the movie musical from the late 20s, 30s, 40s 50s and 60s up to the break dance and the music videos from the 80s.
A wheelchair-bound, former boxer deals with his long estranged granddaughter whom is seeking financial help for her writing career and helping her loser boyfriend get out of debt with the local mob.
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Actor James Cagney receives the Second Annual AFI Lifetime Achievement Award as co-workers pay tribute and clips from his films are shown.
During the Civil War, a Confederate spy takes a job as marshal of a small western town as a cover for his espionage activities. However, he soon finds out that a local businessman is selling weapons to a band of rampaging Indians.
The Ballad of Smokey the Bear tells the story, or a story of Smokey the Bear. The premise has Smokey’s big brother, voiced by James Cagney, telling the story of how his brother got his name. It’s a long winded and rambling tale that has very little Smokey and a great deal of a cranky Jimmy. The story has the animals trying to find out who set a forest fire and is poisoning the water. Its not giving anything away to say it’s an escaped circus gorilla that smokes cigars.
NBC's pioneering documentary series, produced by the David L. Wolper Production Company, in association with United Artists Television. Each 30-minute show concentrated on a Hollywood genre, film or legendary star. This series ran from September 30, 1963 until May 18, 1964, and many of its individual episodes were released into the home gauge market in shortened form. Certain episodes would focus on films being made at the time, notably Preminger's The Cardinal and Huston's Night of the Iguana.
A brief summary on Comumunism, its origins with Marx, passing through two world wars which leads all the way to the Berlin Wall. Oscar nominated documentary narrated by James Cagney.
C.R. MacNamara will do anything to get a promotion within the Coca-Cola company, including looking after boss W.P. Hazeltine's rebellious teenage daughter, Scarlett. When Scarlett visits Berlin, where C.R. is stationed, she reveals that she is married to a communist named Otto Piffl -- and C.R. recognizes that Otto's anti-establishment stance will clash with his boss's own political views, possibly jeopardizing his promotion.
A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.
In 1921 Dublin, the IRA battles the "Black & Tans," special British forces given to harsh measures. Irish-American medical student Kerry O'Shea hopes to stay aloof, but saving a wounded friend gets him outlawed, and inexorably drawn into the rebel organization...under his former professor Sean Lenihan, who has "shaken hands with the devil" and begun to think of fighting as an end in itself. Complications arise when Kerry falls for a beautiful English hostage, and the British offer a peace treaty that is not enough to satisfy Lenihan.
Director Charles Lederer's 1959 musical stars James Cagney as an unscrupulous longshoreman who'll resort to every dirty trick in the book to win his union's presidency.
A hitman is found out because he was paid off by a friend in stolen money. On the run, he kidnaps the his friends girlfriend and the police detective in charge of his pursuit and threatens to kill her unless the hunt is called off.
The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.
Jeremy Rodock is a tough horse rancher who strings up rustlers soon as look at them. Fresh out of Pennsylvania, Steve Miller finds it hard to get used to Rodock's ways, although he takes an immediate shine to his Greek girl Jocasta.
Mr. Roberts is as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.
Vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, who has vowed to forever keep his act a solo, falls in love with and marries Italian ballerina Madeleine. While they continue to tour the circuit, they begin a family and before long have seven little Foys to clutter the wings. After tragedy threatens to stall Eddie's career, he comes to realize that his little terrors are worth their weight in gold. - Chris Stone
Western that starts when a man (Matt Dow) is mistaken as a train robber. After the town's sheriff shoots the kid he's riding with, Dow clears his name and ends up as the new sheriff. He romances a Swedish woman and settles in to a peaceful life only to find that the boy has a few secrets of his own.
A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.
A charismatic peddler from the bayous finds his true calling in politics. Is he a demagogue in the making?
Two military men, Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt, who are rivals to begin with, grow more at odds with each other when Quirt is made Flagg's top sergeant. And when a local beauty comes between them, their rivalry escalates even further. But when they discover that the woman has marriage in mind, they now compete to try to avoid marching down the aisle - that is, until they are called upon to march into battle.
Air Force fliers Rick Williams and Mike Nolan attempt to meet film star Nell Wayne, with whom Rick shares a hometown but not much else. Fellow film stars Doris Day and Ruth Roman mistakenly believe Rick to be very close to Nell and arrange for him to meet her. The pair begin to form a match, especially after Nell, Doris, and Ruth arrange for Hollywood stars to perform for G.I.s in transit to and from the Korean War, at Travis Air Base. But Nell thinks Rick is getting ready to ship out to the war, when in reality, he and Mike ferry troops part of the way then return to Travis Air Base with returning soldiers. Nell is furious with Rick for letting her believe he was headed to a war zone, especially because the press has made a huge story of their romance. Meantime, a new program, Operation Starlift, has been set in place by the Air Force and the Hollywood studios, whereby stars are flown to San Francisco to perform for the outbound and inbound troops
Director Gordon Douglas' 1951 drama stars James Cagney as a newspaperman battling his alcoholism. The cast also includes Gig Young (Oscar nominee, Best Supporting Actor), Phyllis Thaxter, Raymond Massey, James Gleason, Selena Royle, Larry Keating, Sheldon Leonard and King Donovan.
A Broadway director helps the West Point cadets put on a show, aided by two lovely ladies and assorted complications.
Ralph Cotter, a ruthless criminal, escapes violently from a farm prison. Then, he seduces a dead inmate’s sister, gets back quickly into the crime business, faces corrupt local cops who run the city’s underworld and meets a powerful tycoon’s whimsical daughter.
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.
Joe spends a lot of his time at Nick's Pacific Street Saloon. Tom, who credits Joe with once saving his life, stops by regularly to run errands for Joe. Today, Tom notices a woman named Kitty when she comes into Nick's, and he quickly falls in love with her. Meanwhile, a distraught young man repeatedly calls his girlfriend, begging her to marry him. Nick himself muses on all the various persons who come into his bar, some to ask for work and others just to pass the time.
Bob Sharkey, an instructor of would-be spies for the Allied Office of Strategic Services, becomes suspicious of one of the latest batch of students, Bill O'Connell, who is too good at espionage. His boss, Charles Gibson confirms that O'Connell is really a top German agent, but tells Sharkey to pass him, as they intend to feed the mole false information about the impending D-Day invasion.
This short was released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Warner Brothers' first exhibition of the Vitaphone sound-on-film process on 6 August 1926. The film highlights Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's efforts that contributed to sound movies and acknowledges the work of Lee De Forest. Brief excerpts from the August 1926 exhibition follow. Clips are then shown from a number of Warner Brothers features, four from the 1920s, the remainder from 1946/47.
Nick Condon, an American journalist in 1945 Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.
In this short western, a gang of outlaws plots to gain control of the town of Tulsa.
Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died.
John Jones contemplates how fortunate he and his family is in America, where no wartime bombing occurs.
This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
Inspired by Churchill's Dunkirk speech, brash, undisciplined Canadian bush pilot Brian MacLean and three friends enlist in the RCAF.
The process by which girls are chosen for chorus line members in movie musical is shown. Numbers from popular 1930s musicals are then presented. These include "Don't Say Goodnight" from Wonder Bar (1934); "Lullaby of Broadway" from Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) ; "Shadow Waltz" from Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933); and "By a Waterfall" and "Shanghai Lil" from Footlight Parade (1933).
A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan.
A financially-strapped charter pilot hires himself to an oil tycoon to kidnap his madcap daughter and prevent her from marrying a vapid band leader.
Biff Grimes is desperately in love with Virginia, but his best friend Hugo marries her and manipulates Biff into becoming involved in his somewhat nefarious businesses. Hugo appears to have stolen Biff's dreams, and Biff has to deal with the realisation that having what he wants and wanting what another has can be very different things.
Blooper out-takes from Torrid Zone, Four Mothers, The Wagons Roll at Night, The Sea Wolf, No Time for Comedy, The Bride Came C.O.D., and Affectionately Yours, among other Warner Brother productions of 1940 and 1941.
The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?
A Central American plantation manager and his boss battle over a traveling showgirl.
Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.
Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1940.
In this short film, two starstruck movie fans hire a tour guide and see a plethora of Hollywood stars.
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
McCord's gang robs the stage carrying money to pay Indians for their land, and the notorious outlaw "The Oklahoma Kid" Jim Kincaid takes the money from McCord. McCord stakes a "sooner" claim on land which is to be used for a new town; in exchange for giving it up he gets control of gambling and saloons. When Kincaid's father runs for mayor, McCord incites a mob to lynch the old man whom McCord has already framed for murder.
Flubs and bloopers that occurred ont the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1939.
After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.
In New York, the boys Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly are best friends and small time thieves. After a robbery, Rocky is arrested and sent to a reformatory school, where he begins his criminal career. Jerry escapes and later becomes a priest. After three years in prison, Rocky is released and demands the return of $100,000 deposited with his solicitor - prior to his jail term.
Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be pregnant. This gives them the idea for a movie about a cowboy and a baby. The waitress's baby becomes the star. The cowboy and his agent run off with the waitress and her valuable asset. The writers retaliate by hiring an unemployed extra to impersonate the baby's father. But the extra already knows the waitress...
James Cagney has a rare chance to show his song-and-dance-man roots in this low-budget tale of a New York bandleader struggling with a Hollywood studio boss.
War veteran pilots Dizzy Davis, Texas Clark and Jake Lee are working in an airline. Dizzy is fooling with one of the younger pilot's girl-friend and due to this he changes flights with Texas.
Collection of Warner's stars blundering through missed takes.
James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on avenging his captors.
This short shows the entrances of the various Hollywood studios, then specifically visits Warner Bros. / First National Studios. We start at the casting office, then see Busby Berkeley and choreographer Bobby Connolly working with chorus girls on production numbers. Then come some candid shots of several contract stars. Finally we see comedian Hugh Herbert filming a scene for an upcoming release, then the various behind the scenes steps that transition the raw film in the camera into the finished product.
After a roustabout sailer avoids being shanghaied in 1852 San Francisco, his audacity helps him to arise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.
A film adaptation by Max Reinhardt of his popular stage productions of Shakespeare's comedy. Four young people escape Athens to a forest where the king and queen of the fairies are quarreling, while meanwhile a troupe of amateur actors rehearses a play. When the fairy Puck uses a magic flower to make people fall in love, the whole thing becomes a little bit confused...
A promotional short to hype the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).
A boxer (James Cagney) and his policeman brother (Pat O'Brien) feud over a police captain's daughter (Olivia de Havilland).
An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.
Trucker Eddie Kennedy gets involved with the law when he has an car accident with Ann Reid and knocks the owner of a dairy out. He evades a penalty when he claims, that he had done it as an act of solidarism with the farmers. The farmers start an boycott action against this dairy, so the owner has to bring milk from elsewhere to his dairy, but the farmers closed the road, and Kennedy is arrested once more. He leaves jail at night to meet Ann, but meanwhile the owner has asked some mobsters to deliver the milk. One of the farmers is murdered, Ann Reid is missing and Eddie Kennedy is accused of murder.
A cocky guy joins the Navy for the wrong reason but finds romance and twice is cited for heroism.
A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master of Ceremonies.
Long before the release of the cult film Dracula vs. Frankenstein, the original stars of Dracula and Frankenstein met face to face--for a game of chess. The scene is from an early 1934 episode of Columbia Pictures' Screen Snapshots, a series of short films featuring the off-screen lives of Hollywood stars.
A safecracker goes straight after doing a stretch for a bum rap. He agrees to do one last job for his "pals".
Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles. Thompson needs a quick way to discredit him.
A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences. This film has been inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
An ex-gangster tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal activities after he accidentally becomes a movie star.
Famous motor-racing champion Joe Greer returns to his hometown to compete in a local race. He discovers his younger brother has aspirations to become a racing champion, and during the race Joe loses his nerve when another driver is killed, leaving his brother to win. Joe's luck takes a plunge whilst his brother rises to height of fame.
Overworked boxer Jim goes to a health ranch in New Mexico to recover where he falls in love with Peggy and her sickly son. Once recovered, Jim leaves to return to the ring. Can their romance survive the distance?
Two brothers' trip to the big city to do a little gambling results in a fateful turn of events.
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
Golf expert Bobby Jones arrives on the golf course to join actors James Cagney, Anthony Bushell, Donald Cook, Evalyn Knapp, and Louise Fazenda in shooting a golf instruction film. Louise Fazenda however has no knowledge of golf and her ongoing commentary disrupts Jones's attempts to practice. While Cagney and Bushell hold Louise's mouth shut, Jones demonstrates his approach to golf. Later, upon arrival of director George Marshall, Louise is sent off "to practice" alone while the cast and crew go about shooting the film.
The friendship of two working stiff railroad engineers is put to the test when one falls for the other’s wife.
Dorothy West, an interviewer for the New York-based filmed interview series "Intimate Interviews" calls up rising screen star James Cagney and asks for an interview. He agrees and she comes to his house. Cagney and West sit down while she asks him questions about his early life and his career.
A millionaire automaker retires upon the advice of his doctor, but becomes so bored he buys half interest in a gas station and works it on the sly.
A vicious crime lord decides that he has had enough and much to the shock of his colleagues decides to give the business to his second in command and retire to Florida after marrying his moll. Unfortunately, he has no idea that she and the man are lovers.
Ma Delano runs a penny arcade in Coney Island, living upstairs with her sons and daughter. Story involves rum-running, accidental murder and a frame-up.
