Winner Take All

Winner Take All (1932)

*** (out of 4)

A hotshot New York prizefighter (James Cagney) leaves the city for the country so he can get some rest. While in the country he falls for a sweet single mother (Marian Nixon) but once he's back in the city he falls for a rich girl (Virginia Bruce) just using him. A subplot dealing with Cagney getting plastic surgery is rather weird as we get a different looking Cagney as well as one sounding a lot different. That aside, the story is actually pretty good and the moments at the start with Cagney and Nixon are very warm and touching. The film offers a lot of nice laughs and the boxing scenes are really, really good. There's one fight that has an ending, which appears to have been lifted in Rocky 2.

James Cagney plays a dim-witted boxer who falls for a widow with a sick kid, then for a sexy socialite (Virginia Bruce). This is notable for being Cagney's first boxing movie but, beyond that, there isn't a lot to recommend here. The script's kind of all over the place, with the early scenes seeming out of sync with the rest of the picture. Cagney's performance is fine, even if he doesn't have a lot to work with. A nice supporting cast including Guy Kibbee, Alan Mowbray, and Clarence Muse helps. George Raft has a bit part as a bandleader in a night club. Blink and you'll miss him. Clips from this were used in Cagney's final movie, the made-for-TV "Terrible Joe Moran". If you're a Cagney completist, give it a shot. Everybody else go watch City for Conquest.

This begins slowly: James Cagney is boxer who needs some rest. He gets sent to a rural area by his manager, Guy Kibbee. There he meets Marian Nixon and her son, the (ostensibly) adorable Dickie Moore. He falls for her.

He goes back to New York and falls for high-class Virginia Bruce. And here it picks up. The early scenes are a little soppy. Back on familiar turf, Cagney can strut his stuff.

Without giving anything away, Bruce humiliates him. He makes himself over for her. There's lots more to come; so I have not given away the plot.

The cast is excellent, including the great actor Clarence Muse as a trainer named Rosebud. Nixon's role calls for her to be a little saccharine. But Bruce is excellent.

This is a change from the early Cagney movies in which he is a cocksure guy who knows the score. He knows the score, but loses track of it for a while.

There are some effeminate stereotypes, including a character played by the always entertaining Alan Mowbry. I can't hold these against the movie, though. They were of its time.

It's not Cagney at his best but it's by no means his worst, either.

Pretty new to the hollywood scene, James Cagney is Jimmy Kane, pro boxer, on a break at health ranch. He meets up with singer Peggy (Marion Nixon), who really needs money for her ill son. co-stars Virginia Bruce and Guy Kibbee, who were in so many films in the 1930s and 1940s. the usual boy-meets-girl story, and just before the film code was too strong. Kibbee is his manager "Pop", but when he lines up a big time fight, Kane isn't sure he wants to do it, because it might ruin his body even more. a really funny scene when Kane and his helper are practicing meeting various people in new york city. gotta pay attention, or you'll miss it. but now the girlfriend is running cold... she and her best friend are total idiots, and Kane is better off without them! but that's just me. watch the adventure unfold. Directed by Roy DelRuth; he didn't win any oscars, but he got his star on the the hollywood walk of fame, and made some biggies in the 1940s !

Definitely one of the oddest boxing movies ever made, and the first time in James Cagney's early career where his performance is obvious: As punchy Jimmy Kane, he speaks in a forced, dumb-guy dialect that shouldn't have gotten past the rehearsal stage...

Introduced as a total has-been, with crowds throwing money in the ring before a newer, more relevant fighter's bout, he's sent to a strange and remote New Mexico health farm (taking up the first act in a lonesome, flickering black & white that feels like another movie altogether) where he meets the good girl with a sick son, whose hopeful/helpful input pales to the gorgeous but shallow, conceited and suffocating dame who, back in New York, owns poor Jimmy right down to his flat nose and cauliflower ear: hence surgically altered to fit with her stuffy, pseudo-intellectual crowd...

So to protect his facial investment, he dances around the ring instead of fighting, turning off fans and especially Virginia Bruce's sexy society gal Joan Gibson as the entire second half's ruled by her impatient, fickle attitude...

But then, finally aware of the deplorable situation known to everyone but his hypnotized, duped self, Cagney's limited performance expands into a familiar street savvy edge. Along with fists flying in the right direction (with a jumping-bean style only Cagney could or would pull off), it's a comeback/turnaround that's long overdue.