Well Deserved Praise

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The most interesting theme of this very outstanding and typical dark Irish drama is the multitude of double personalities. James Cagney is number one, of course, a respectable surgeon and professor at the university on one hand and leading an underground war with many murders on the orther. Don Murray enters a pacifist, having learned the hard way in the first world war the dreadful self-destructive futility of being a soldier, refusing to kill any more, but he is transformed to yet another fanatic and killer - and very logically so. When the crisis comes he is faced by the fact that he has only one choice - and accepts it and walks the whole line. And then there is Glynis Johns, wonderful as always, as a bar maid luring any man to get into her, being wholly on the freedom fighter side, but then, when the crisis comes, melting and surrendering to her very human and female weakness. Dana Wynter, on the other hand, stays cool, sees through it all and remains rigorous, - and that's why she is of no psychological interest.All the other actors are superb as well, Cyril Cusack as the poet-soldier, Richard Harris in a very early performance spoiling it all by rowdy mistakes, Michael Redgrave as head of the Irish rebel army but callously political, all enjoying a terrific and memorable dialogue, that is sustained in excellence throughout. They could have brought Michael Collins in it as well, but you can't have everything. Wlliam Alwyn's impressing music does the rest, with a truly inspired cinematography at that - many sceneries recall similar unforgettable moments in "Odd Man Out", another timeless variation on the same complex problem of the necessity of fidelity to the cause at any cost - but at what price? In the end its inhuman absurdity always has outgrown all reasonable acceptability.

"Shake Hands with the Devil" takes place in 1920s Ireland, where the IRA is doing battle with the British Black and Tans. A handsome young Irish-American surgery student, Kerry O'Shea (Don Murray) doesn't want to get involved, preferring to remain apolitical, but his stance changes when his good friend Paddy Nolan (Ray McAnally) is gunned down in the street. He joins the forces being commandeered by his surgery professor Sean Lenihan (James Cagney), a passionate individual if ever there was one, who simply lives for conflict. Trouble brews for Kerry when he falls in love with Jennifer Curtis (Dana Wynter), the daughter of an important British official. Jennifer has been kidnapped to serve as a hostage until British forces release leading revolutionary Lady Fitzhugh (Sybil Thorndike) from imprisonment."Shake Hands with the Devil" may be a fictionalized account of turbulent times, but it's still pretty powerful stuff. Much credit should go to producer & director Michael Anderson, working in collaboration with cinematographer Erwin Hillier, because they give this a very stark look. The high contrast lighting gives the film a LOT of atmosphere. The storytelling is riveting, and the intelligent script (screenplay by Ivan Goff & Ben Roberts, and adaptation by Marian Spitzer, based on the novel by Rearden Conner) gives the audience some things to think about. Characters debate ideology, and, not unexpectedly, our young hero is a man who believes that a war can be fought with honour and compassion.Murray and Wynter are very appealing, and the cast is full of some recognizable and excellent actors. Cagney once again is absolutely magnetic, playing a character who always commands your attention. Glynis Johns, Michael Redgrave, Cyril Cusack, Richard Harris (as a swaggering braggart), John Le Mesurier, Niall MacGinnis, and Christopher Rhodes all leave a vivid impression in their time on screen.Extremely well done, from start to finish, with an especially potent finale.Nine out of 10.

In Shake Hands with the Devil Jimmy Cagney takes his Cody Jarrat to Dublin with the same homicidal intent but this time for Irish Independence. As cruel and cold as any of his youthful mug portrayals Cagney is indeed a lion in winter.American born Kerry O'Shea (Don Murray) studying to be a doctor in Dublin is implicated in a bloody confrontation with The Black and Tans during Ireland's fight for Independence in the early 20s. Given the option to leave or stay and help the cause he chooses at first to leave but decides to stay when he falls for a Brit captive played by Dana Wynter. His college professor Dr. Lenihan (Cagney) it turns out is a major player in the IRA but also a stubborn recalcitrant to anything less than total Independence.In Devil we are given a clearer picture of what the fight for Irish Independence was about that earlier classics The Informer and in the case of Odd Man Out an attempt to avoid naming the combatants at all. Anderson like Reed ( Ford was clear in his declaration) walks a fine line as he balances the blood lusting Lenihan with the Fascist martinet Tan commandant. It is clear atrocity is pervasive on both sides.Anderson however is neither Ford nor Reed in eye or story telling style and while it is more revealing in content the editing is sloppy, the action slap dash, the performances inconsistent and in spite of the magnificent countryside displayed lacking the crushing melancholy ambiance of either .Cagney's quick change from convivial prof to cold blooded realist is a jolt and while he has lost a step his menace and his intensity remains intact and intimidating. The Murray Wyntar romance merely bogs the film down with tepid passion and performance. Glynis Johns tragic barmaid, Ray McNally's activist student, Dame Sybil Thorndike's defiantly campy 80 year old IRA supporter and especially the lilting voice of Cyril Cusack expounding on life lend strong support. In a small role Richard Harris mumbles bungles his way along while Collins prototype Michael Redgrave poses in profile and key light pontificating on the rewards of partial peace while old pro Cagney facially contorts in agony over his words.Shake Hands with the Devil is a credible work but for me it is hard to shake the finely crafted ghosts that hover above it and amplify its drawbacks.

A rather nondescript movie which labors to really come to grips with the issues, but there is more to this film than meets the eye, and its worth viewing more than once. Jim Cagney gives an excellent portrayal as the intellectual who seems to have thought everything through, and draws his protégé over onto the dark side, much against the latter's better judgment. Only right at the end are we made aware that whatever higher levels of reasoning may have led the professor down the path of terrorism, all he really wants to do is kill women.I'd call that a fairly definitive statement about terrorists in general and Cagney makes it in his understated but masterful style. I wonder if his character was based on a real person from that troubled time ? R. B.