Sinners' Holiday

In 1929, James Cagney and Joan Blondell (neither of them well-known at the time) played supporting roles in a Broadway drama called "Penny Arcade". Warner Brothers bought the film rights and brought Cagney and Blondell to Hollywood to repeat their stage roles in the screen version, retitled "Sinner's Holiday". This was the first movie for both of them. (Blondell's second film, a quickie, was released before "Sinner's Holiday", a more prestigious picture.) The actual star of this film is Grant Withers, playing a gangster who's made a lot of enemies and needs a place to hide before he gets rubbed out. Withers is pretty good, and he deserves to be better known. Cagney's role is much smaller, but he's absolutely electrifying. As soon as he steps on screen, there's no question that he's the best actor in this movie ... one of the best actors in the history of films, in fact.

Joan Blondell is boring in this film, as usual. Her appeal has always eluded me. At least in her other films she usually had something to do; here, she doesn't. There are good performances by Lucille LaVerne and Warren Hymer, in his usual typecast role as a dim gangster. Hank Mann, who was one of the original Keystone Cops (and who eventually outlived all the other Keystone Cops), is excellent here in a small role.

"Sinner's Holiday" suffers from the usual Warner Brothers complaint: low budget-itis. I saw the trailer for this film before I saw the movie itself. The trailer features a shot of amusement park rides in a funfair. This is obviously stock footage, but at least I expected the stock shot to turn up in the movie itself. Surprisingly, it doesn't. There's almost nothing on screen to convince you that this movie takes place in an amusement park. It looks like a stage play recorded on film, rather than a movie in its own right. Still, "Sinner's Holiday" has much to recommend it, and Cagney's performance alone is worth your time. I'll rate this movie 6 out of 10 points, or 7 if you're a Cagney fan. If you're a Joan Blondell fan, I don't want to know about it.

Middling Pre-Coder that's notable for being the film debuts of James Cagney and Joan Blondell (with her natural hair color, no less). The plot's about a family that runs a waterfront penny arcade and the trouble the youngest son (Cagney) gets into, including bootlegging and killing a guy. One for Cagney fans to check off their list but it's really not that great. The characters are all pretty unlikable and Jimmy shows little of that trademark charm & swagger in the role of a sniveling punk. Public Enemy would play to his strengths much better and, of course, make him a star. Lucille La Verne plays Cagney's mom and she hams it up in every scene. Grant Withers is pretty good as the ne'er-do-well turned good by the love of a woman. That woman being lovely Evalyn Knapp. She was my favorite part of the whole picture. The scene with her and Withers under the pier is probably the film's highlight. It's an early talkie so it creaks and groans but at least it doesn't seem like a filmed stage play, so points for that. Still, after it's over, you won't be in any hurry to tell your friends about it.

A flop Broadway show, Penny Arcade, served as the vehicle for the joint debuts of James Cagney and Joan Blondell on the big screen. Both Cagney and Blondell repeat the roles they played on Broadway and both received a lot more notice than nominal stars Grant Withers and Evelyn Knapp.

Penny Arcade only ran for 24 performances on Broadway, no doubt the Depression played a part in closing it as it did many shows that season. Retitling it Sinner's Holiday, the film is about the Delano family who run an amusement concession in Coney Island. Lucille LaVerne is the tough minded mother and she's got daughter Knapp and sons Cagney and Ray Gallagher working for her. She's a tyrannical old woman, who's determined to see that none of her kids get into the illegal booze business for the quick money.

Unfortunately Cagney's involved up to his eyeballs with another concession owner, Warren Hymer, whose place is used as a front for the sale and transportation of illegal whiskey. Cagney and Hymer quarrel and Cagney shoots Hymer dead.

LaVerne is quite willing to see petty drifter Grant Withers take the fall for her son even though Knapp's falling for him. She holds out that Knapp can do better for herself, like this crowd of Carnies ever could.

Cagney's screen presence overawes the rest of the cast with the possible exception of Blondell who provides Cagney with an alibi for the shooting. You can easily tell who was heading for stardom in this bunch.

Grant Withers at the time was a promising leading man who was married around this time to Loretta Young, ever so briefly. He had a lot of substance abuse problems and faded gradually into supporting parts. John Ford used him occasionally as he got older and John Wayne always found work for him in several of his films. Cagney was still in support of Withers the following year in Other Men's Women, but in 1954 Withers had a supporting part as an outlaw leader in Cagney's western, Run For Cover. Withers committed suicide in 1959.

Sinner's Holiday is an entertaining enough film, but it really could have been a classic if Cagney had played Withers's role. William Wellman eventually remedied that in Public Enemy.

On a Coney Island arcade, a corpse turns up.

John Adolfi's movie version has not aged particularly well. Likewise. Many of the performances do not stand up to 90 decades. While Evalyn Knapp, Jimmy Cagney and Joan Blondell (Jimmy and Joan had taken the same roles in the Broadway production) are fine in their roles, the whole seems an uneasy morality play and the other actors give stagey line readings. Cagney and Blondell are still working their way through, but their staginess seems to fit the characters and Jimmy's nervous energy delivers a punch.

It's the Coney Island boardwalk amusement park. Ma Delano runs a penny arcade and lives above it with her children Jennie, Joe, and Harry (James Cagney). Mitch McKane runs a bootleg operation under them and has his eye on Jennie but Angel Harrigan beats him to her by weeks and months. Harry gets involved with Mitch and one night, he shoots Mitch dead in a confrontation. He hides his crime as the police investigates. He confesses to Ma who tries to frame everything on Angel.

I don't think that I've ever seen Cagney play such a sniveling little punk, at least not to this extent. It's interesting and a little fun. He's not the lead in this one. It's really really early in his career. It's his first credited role. It's also fun to see the sleaziness of the amusement carnival laid out in this pre-Code talkie. There is something edgy while being innocent.