Winner Take All

This pre code, Cagney, boxing flic is kind of like a lightweight match between standardization in one corner versus originality in the opposite, with the former winning by a decision. In other words, the fight scenes are merely ok, one tires of Cagney's ersatz Joe Palooka accent, the great Guy Kibbee is wasted, and Marian Nixon and that too adorable kid of hers are insufferably dull. But then, almost saving the picture, you've got some nice, cynical, edgy pre code dialogue courtesy of Wilson Mizener and Robert Lord, and Virginia Bruce's Daisy to Cagney's pug Gatsby is almost worth the price of admission. Give it a C plus.

PS...Bad call on the fighting abilities of the Japanese, wouldn't you say?

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.

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.

Winner Take All is a typical example of the roles James Cagney was so trying to get away from in those early years at Warner Brothers. In this programmer he's a lightweight prizefighter whose fans have to take up a collection in Madison Square Garden to send him away for a rest cure. Seems that Cagney liked the night life just a little too much and its put his health at risk.

While in New Mexico he meets and falls for good girl Marian Nixon and her son Dickie Moore. She's there with Moore for his health problems. An out of condition Cagney takes a local fight there to help pay for their expenses on a winner take all basis and barely survives the bout.

Then when he gets back to New York he starts hanging around with bad society girl Virginia Bruce and her crowd. She makes a chump out of street smart Jimmy.

I don't think I have to say too much more. Guy Kibbee as Cagney's manager and Clarence Muse as his corner man fill their roles very well.

The only two things that Winner Take All became noted for was that this was the first time Cagney did a boxing film. He got into the ring later on in The Irish in Us and City for Conquest. But also footage from this film was used in that last Cagney made for TV film Terrible Joe Moran.

That film was a mistake whereas this one is strictly routine.

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 !