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.

If it wasn't for the presence of cocky James Cagney, I'd probably say skip this one. It has a very mediocre plot line involving pride coming before a fall, with Cagney playing the boxer whose story is the object lesson. Cagney plays Jimmy Kane, a boxer who has a heart condition who, for some reason, needs a rest cure out West in the desert for a few months. His trainer is played by Guy Kibbee, who says things that lead you to believe that Kane loved the nightlife and that he is glad he is going somewhere that there isn't any.

But that doesn't mean Kane doesn't find a woman out at the rest cure ranch where he is staying. He runs into widow Peggy Harmon (Marian Nixon) who is at the ranch for her little son's sake (Dickie Moore) and they hit it off. When she can't raise the money to stay the extra three months that her son needs, Kane risks his health for a 2000 dollar fight to help her out. He winds up with a messed up nose and a cauliflower ear as a result.

Kane gets the medical OK to leave before Peggy can, and he pledges fidelity to her. The newly healthy Kane rises to the top of his profession again. And then he meets a society gal - Joan (Virginia Bruce). Joan is fascinated by Kane, but not sexually attracted to him and is also extremely embarrassed by his ignorance whenever they are out with "her set". The thing is, Kane doesn't see this and thinks Joan is as gaga over him like he is over the moon for her. His postcards to Peggy get increasingly infrequent and terse. Complications ensue.

This one does have a few things to recommend it. For one, this is one of Virginia Bruce's earliest credited roles and she does a a good job of playing a bad girl. And she isn't obvious either. You never know EXACTLY where she is taking this thing with Cagney's character. There is also a rather odd conversation when Joan's set is discussing Russia and "the great social experiment going on" over there and "the five year plan".

This film doesn't give the normally colorful and hilarious Guy Kibbee much to do, and that was a bit of a disappointment as was the bland part Marian Nixon got stuck with as Peggy. But, hey, how often do you get to see a plastic surgery angle dragged into a precode boxing film where it is the man trying to pretty up for the woman? Mildly recommended, and mainly for Cagney who never disappoints.

Resting in the country, lightweight boxer James Cagney (as Jim "Jimmy" Kane) meets sweet widow Marian Nixon (as Peggy Harmon) and her adorable six-year-old son Dickie Moore (as Dickie). You can almost hear the wedding bells warming up when Mr. Cagney gives Ms. Nixon his winnings to save the ranch. But, when manager Guy Kibbee (as Pop Slavin) helps Cagney to the top of the boxing circuit, the champ is lured away from his new sweetheart by shapely New York socialite Virginia Bruce (as Joan Gibson)...

Cagney tries to fit in with the upscale crowd by getting his broken nose and cauliflower ear fixed, but learns looks aren't everything. This variation on the routine boxing picture was unofficially re-made as "Kid Monk Baroni" (1952), an unintentionally amusing drama starring Leonard Nimoy. "Winner Take All" owes its limited success to Cagney's deliberate comedy, although it recalled as his first appearance in a boxing movie. For some reason, Cagney is always funny with a "dresser" and his timing is perfect herein.

****** Winner Take All (7/16/32) Roy Del Ruth ~ James Cagney, Marian Nixon, Virginia Bruce, Guy Kibbee

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.

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.