I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In the 1930s Warner Bros was the unrivaled home of the gangster picture. These films were so much fun, filled with action and drama with a heaping dose of social commentary on the side. Despite the criminals usually dying in the end of these movies, WB was accused by some of glorifying hoodlums. So, in answer to that, they made this little gem that was designed to glorify the "good guys" instead. How did they do that? They took their main tough guy star, James Cagney, and made him a fed (or G-Man). In this movie, Cagney plays a lawyer who joins the Department of Justice after his federal agent friend is killed.This is a first-rate gangster picture, directed by William Keighley and written by Seton I. Miller. No matter which side of the law he's on, Cagney is his usual charismatic self, not too far removed from his other gangster roles. He's still the tough runt who would sooner break your jaw or plug you with his gat before he would place you under arrest, but he's got a badge this time and he does follow the rules...for the most part. Fantastic cast backing Cagney up. William Harrigan is a scene stealer as the soft-hearted gangster who helps Jimmy out and pays for it in the end. Perennial heavy Barton MacLane gets plenty of scenery to chew as the main villain. Robert Armstrong is the agent that rides Cagney hard but eventually decides he's a good egg. Margaret Lindsay is Armstrong's sister and one of two dames that fall for Jimmy in this picture. The other being the lovely Ann Dvorak, who shines as she almost always did. She is really one of the more underrated actresses of her time. Despite her appealing performance, though, her first scene is a bit cringeworthy as she's badly lip-syncing and awkwardly dancing around like a wounded chicken. She was a fine dramatic actress but not a great singer or dancer. Others rounding out the cast include Lloyd Nolan, Regis Toomey, Harold Huber, Jonathan Hale, and Edward Pawley as a vicious hood named Leggett.It's a beautiful-looking picture, courtesy of cinematographer Sol Polito. The big shootout between the feds and the gangsters is one of the film's highlights. The scene where Cagney gets a jujitsu lesson is also a real treat. There's an amusing FBI 'crime does not pay' type of prologue that was tacked on for the 1949 re-release that is present on most prints today. Definitely a must-see for fans of Cagney and WB gangster movies. If you aren't one of those already, you should be.

Lawyer Brick Davis (James Cagney) is a fresh-out-of-school law graduate with no clients. When his old friend Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey) stops in town, he approaches Davis to become a 'G Man' - a member of a newly formed federal force that uses brains combined with brawn to make the perfect law enforcement. Davis isn't interested, but when Buchanan is shot dead by a gang of organised thugs, he joins up instantly, and begins to distance himself with his criminal clients. Upon arrival at the FBI recruitment centre, he knocks heads with his newly-appointed mentor Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong) who dislikes the amount of law graduates they are getting. When the gang that Davis left behind start to cause mayhem on a federal scale, Davis uses his knowledge and experience to bring the gang to justice.With all the Pre-Code mayhem that was taking over the cinemas back in the 1930's, people began worrying about the flattering, anti-hero portrayals that the criminal underworld were getting. Films such as the 1932 version of Scarface, and The Public Enemy (also starring Cagney) both showed them in a flattering light, so G-Men wanted to make the law cool again. Cagney's Brick Davis is very much like the villains portrayed in these films - he's ambitious, tough, intelligent - but he's also moral. The criminals, however, are portrayed as pure scum, and (in a quite shocking scene) capable of killing women without thinking twice. More of an FBI propaganda film than a film noir or a crime film, but it's easily watchable. Yet apart from a couple of bloody good shootouts and the odd surprise, the film never really grips and it does lack the usual bite from Cagney.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Of course Cagney's best parts in the 30's and 40's were his trademark gangster roles - think "Public Enemy", "Angels With Dirty Faces" and "White Heat" but here he gets to cross the road and do-good as a bored would-be lawyer turned hard-bitten FBI man in this brisk actioner on the trail of the gang who murder his best friend, who just happens to be an FBI man trying to recruit Cagney into the ranks! Obviously derived from a pulp fiction source (besides the above, the plot has still more twists and turns than a roller-coaster, it takes someone like Cagney to drive it along as you suspend disbelief at the fantastical coincidences that happen along the way. I quite liked the direction of the piece, remembering this is quite an early "talkie", for example there's a nice car chase montage, some nice fast - panning camera shots and a concentration on forensic techniques someway ahead of its time, all told in fact, the director keeps the pace up throughout, with some mild interjections of humour between the numerous shoot-ups which seem to occur every few minutes. There is some poor editing-in though, of some stunts early in the piece as Cagney goes through his physical training. The rest of the cast give mixed performances, the dancer that Cagney leaves behind (but who ends up dead as the unwilling moll of the villain who kills Cagney's mate - see what I mean about the fantastical plot-line) acts far better and seems a better catch than the straight-laced almost glum girl he actually does get! Also Cagney's old mobster-boss gets bumped off accidentally as the G-Men storm the gangsters' lair and before he expires, delivers an excruciatingly bad death-scene. To go on in this way would be slightly cruel as the film is clearly a star vehicle for Cagney and doesn't he know it. The version I watched incidentally has a late 1940's Warner Brothers introduction by actors playing real FBI men, effectively laying claim to the movie as a recruitment driver although interestingly the FBI isn't, to the best of my recollection, formally named in the whole film.

Until this movie appeared in 1935, Jimmy Cagney had played roles in which he was a con man or a gangster of some sort. The formula having grown a little weary, Warners put him in "G Men," in which he joins the FBI and pursues murderers and other people guilty of moral terpitude. Saw this for the first time tonight after having waited a good number of years and was satisfied but a little disappointed.What a cast -- Stu Erwin, Loyd Nolan, Robert Armstrong, Ann Dvorak (pronounced roughly "Dvor-zhock", like the composer, although her real name was McKim). Then there was Barton MacLane as a bad guy, Margaret Lindsay as a good girl. And the performances are about what you'd expect -- that is to say, pretty good, with the exception of Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" fame who would be better put to use as a traffic signal, only instead of "go", "caution", and "stop," he could transmit "surprise", "remorse," and "anger." Whatever happened to Ann Dvorak? She's unconventionally stunning, was a gay, sexy, recklessly clumsy dancer, had the biggest, most expressive eyes in the business, and -- as we all know -- the eyes are the windows of the hootchy cootchy.Lamentably, the story is a crazy quilt of barely related plots stapled together out of old scripts and recent newspaper clippings. It might have made a good comic book. You can pretty much tell from the moment they're introduced who's going to be toast. There's the personal animosity between Cagney and the gang he knows back home, some stuff that tries to capture the headlines of the early 1930s about Midwestern gangs, and a faux history of the FBI's reactive development. Scenes alternate between rather dull and talky, and speedy, unimaginatively staged ambuscades. I think the same car crashes through the same store window twice.I felt more nearly complete after having watched it. Cagney's performance alone makes it worth watching. He lacks some of his usual mannerisms, the shrug of the shoulders, the hitch of the pants, but he's bouncy and smart-alecky. It's only the narrative and the direction that seems lacking or leaden. I mean, after all, I waited about twenty years to see it, and I think the Warner Brothers owed me more than they delivered.