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''One of the most intelligent and graceful actors ever to be disguised as a JAMES CAGNEY: The Bride Came C.O.D. Five Cagney Classics Debut on DVD 11th June
About James Cagney Raised on New York’s lower Eastside, Cagney made his first professional appearance at 21 in the chorus of the Broadway musical “Pitter-Patter.” After landing several more important Broadway roles, he scored in another musical, “Penny Arcade,” and then appeared in the film version (renamed Sinner's Holiday) in 1930. A year later, after signing with Warner Bros., he played a ruthless gangster in Public Enemy, in which he smashed a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face. It was his fourth movie and it made him a star. By 1938, he was the studio’s highest paid star, earning $234,000. Most noted as an arrogantly confident tough guy in films like Angels with Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties and White Heat, Cagney showed his versatility in other roles such as George M. Cohan in the above-mentioned Yankee Doodle Dandy; Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream; the crazy ship captain in Mister Roberts and as a captain of industry in Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three. In 1981, Cagney emerged briefly from retirement to star in Milos Forman’s Ragtime in which he was reunited with his frequent ‘30s co-star Pat O'Brien. As it happened, it was the final theatrical film for both actors. Cagney was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and served as its president from 1942 to 1944. He received the American Film Institute’s first Lifetime Achievement Award in 1974 and a Kennedy Centre Honour in 1980. In 1984, his longtime friend Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Comedy comes from numerous sources in this screwball farce headlined by the ebullient pairing of James Cagney and Bette Davis, scripted by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein (Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace). Whether up in the clouds, or underground in a mine, the stars (in their second and final film together) spar with harebrained zest as a pilot hired to kidnap an about-to-elope heiress, and the happy result from start to end is C.O.D. – Comedy on Demand. DVD Special Features:
In the seventh of their nine movies together, off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O’Brien play soldiers of the famed, largely Irish-American World War I regiment, the Fighting 69th. O’Brien is Father Duffy, the brave chaplain whose statue stands today in Manhattan’s Times Square. Cagney is Jerry Plunkett, a street-tough braggart turned yellow by the horror of No Man’s Land, but inspired to redemptive heroism by Duffy’s courage under fire. DVD Special Features:
Off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O’Brien team for the eighth time in this snappy action comedy set in a Central American “Banana” Republic. In a role widely cited as putting her on the movie fan’s map, Hollywood’s “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan portrays wisecracking chanteuse Lee Donley who’s the lure to keep the plantation’s best man (Cagney) from leaving the company. With superb support, zippy repartee, plus 950 banana trees planted over 5 backlot acres, the heat is on. DVD Special Features:
James Cagney puts on his dancing shoes again for this merry musical comedy packed with spirited starpower and lively tunes by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. Cagney plays a Broadway showman down on his luck yet full of hotshot ideas. Brought to West Point to stage the cadets’ annual musical, he decides to make it a tryout for a Broadway transfer. But first, he must lure the show’s talented lead (Gordon MacRae) out of the military. He’s got just the right bait: a sweet-natured Hollywood star (Doris Day). Virginia Mayo and Gene Nelson also star alongside the irrepressible Cagney, who’s “in rare good form, singing, dancing and wisecracking in his most electrifying style” (Bosley Crowther, The New York Times). DVD Special Features:
Please note artwork is subject to change
Diana Privitera @ NOBLE PR For high resolution stills please contact diana@noblepr.co.uk
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