Frisco Kid (1935)

Frisco Kid: Directed by Lloyd Bacon. With James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Lili Damita. After a roustabout sailer avoids being shanghaied in 1852 San Francisco, his audacity helps him to arise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.

“Middling Warner Bros. costumer has James Cagney playing a sailor who narrowly escapes being shanghaied. He gets revenge fairly quickly. Then we have a typical u0026quot;small-time hood climbs the ranks of the criminal underworldu0026quot; plot that was used in so many WB gangster pictures, quite a few of which starred Cagney. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCagneyu0026#39;s fine in an unchallenging role. George E. Stone is good as Cagneyu0026#39;s Jewish tailor friend. Ricardo Cortez is the criminal saloon owner who gives Cagney his start. Margaret Lindsay is pretty and likable enough in a bland part as the good girl corrupt Cagney wants to go straight for. Her father was a crusading newspaper editor killed for standing up to the bad guys. Like I said, this feels like WB took a script from one of their gangster movies, changed the setting, and passed it off as a period drama. The problem with that is those gangster pictures werenu0026#39;t good because of their formulaic plots. They were good because of the snappy dialogue, fun characters, and urban flavor of the 1930s. Thatu0026#39;s missing here, which makes for a rather dull movie. The last quarter of the movie, including the lynching stuff, is the most exciting part. The tacked-on happy ending stinks.”