City for Conquest
James Cagney did not need boxing training for the film, as in his youth he was an amateur boxer - good enough to be runner-up in the New York State lightweight division.,When Danny and Mutt run into Googi at the construction site, the Chrysler Building can be seen in the background in shots from both sides of the truck.,'Googi': [His dying words after being shot by a hoodlum he thought was unarmed] Ah, gee, never figured on that at all.,In a part similar to his Stage Manager in Our Town (1940), Frank Craven appears as "Old Timer", the "host" of "City for Conquest" in a sort of Greek chorus style. Almost all of Craven's footage was eliminated for the 1948 re-release. Totaling six or so minutes of screen time, this cut material was not seen until it was restored in a 2006 DVD release. Older prints not containing this material run approximately 98 minutes; the restored print runs 104 minutes.,Edited into Head (1968),Magic Isle Symphony
(1940) (uncredited)
Music by Max Steiner
Played on piano as well as by the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra
Played often throughout the picture,Terrific 1940 film where the great James Cagney does it again in giving a memorable performance. This time it's as a fighter who goes into boxing so that his brother, Arthur Kennedy, can fulfill a musical career as well as an escape for girl friend, Ann Sheridan, ditching him for a dancing career with Anthony Quinn, a real cad if there ever were.

The film has a tremendous supporting cast and all do a fine job in showing what movie making should be.

Future director, Elia Kazan, is in fine form as a mobster, a product of a rough childhood environment. In seeing Kazan here, I wonder what his acting career would have been like had he not chosen to go behind the camera.

The aspect of N.Y. life is wonderfully shown by the upper class of musical life, life on the lower east side as well as the boxing center of sports. How they interact in this film is so well memorably accomplished.

As a boxing magnate, I thought that the usual erudite Donald Crisp would be miscast. How wrong I was. He evoked much sympathy in trying to protect his fighter-Cagney.

A truly memorable film. This is a heck of a movie classic.,