James Cagney

An American newspaper editor in 1920s Tokyo uncovers a secret Japanese military plan for expansion across the Pacific, and becomes a target of both the army and a double agent. James Cagney stars in this wartime thriller, which won an Academy Award for art direction. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Thriller · War · Drama

A crime film starring James Cagney and directed by John G. Blystone, produced for Grand National Pictures after Cagney's departure from Warner Bros. Cagney plays Johnny Cave, a pugnacious new inspector for the New York Department of Weights and Measures who takes on corrupt merchants and the political machine behind them. Mae Clarke, his co-star from The Public Enemy, plays his love interest. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A 1930 pre-Code crime drama and the film debut of James Cagney, who reprises his Broadway role from the play Penny Arcade by Marie Baumer. Directed by John G. Adolfi for Warner Bros., the film is set at a Coney Island penny arcade run by Ma Delano (Lucille La Verne). When her son Harry (Cagney) gets involved in a bootlegging operation run by Mitch McKane (Warren Hymer), a fatal shooting on the darkened pier sets off a tense family drama. Joan Blondell also makes her film debut, repeating her stage role as Myrtle. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

James Cagney between Warner Bros. contracts, starring for Grand National in a Hollywood satire he clearly relished. Terry Rooney, a New York band leader and hoofer, is shipped to Hollywood to become a movie star, hates everything about the factory system, and walks out on his own hit picture — while studio publicists try to manufacture a romance that has nothing to do with his real life. Evelyn Daw, William Frawley, and Gene Lockhart co-star, with Victor Schertzinger directing his own score. Cagney gets to tap-dance, roughhouse, and mock the industry that made him, and the film is far sharper than its poverty-row distributor suggests. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

James Cagney plays Joe, a gentle idler who spends his days observing life in Nick's waterfront saloon in San Francisco, sending lackey Tom on eccentric errands and watching the bar's regulars drift through: an old cowboy spinning tall tales, a hoofer who can't get a laugh, and Kitty Duval, played by Cagney's sister Jeanne. William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play comes to the screen under director H.C. Potter, with William Bendix as Nick and Broderick Crawford and Ward Bond among the ensemble. Warm, odd, and unhurried, it is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Drama