The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties

1939. USA. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cinematography by Ernie (Ernest) Haller. With James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George, Jeffrey Lynn. In many ways, this was the culmination of the Warner Brothers gangster cycle (Little, Caesar, Public Enemy, Scarface, etc.). Much has been made by critics of F. W. Murnau’s influence on the style of John Ford and Frank Borzage, who were watching Sunrise being filmed at Fox in 1927, but Raoul Walsh was there, too. Intermittently (and sometimes sophomorically), Walsh applied these lessons of light and shadow to various genres, but never more so than in his crime films. 104 min.