Something better than Taxi should have been given for a film in the one and only teaming of screen legends James Cagney and Loretta Young. It's a typical Thirties Warner Brothers potboiler about a taxi cab conglomerate making war on independent hacks. Of course you know that Cagney is the good Irish son of New York City leading the independents against the strong arm tactics of David Landau.
Landau is the best thing in Taxi, a real brute of a guy whether he's the head goon of Consolidated Taxi or a hunted fugitive after he kills Cagney's brother.
Taxi is just the kind of stuff that Cagney was trying so hard to get away from, scripts like these were what he was constantly battling with Jack Warner over, Cagney wanted better and eventually got it. Young has little to do but be the valiant wife.
Who pulls something incredibly stupid in the script. At the beginning her father kills one of the Landau goons and goes to prison and dies there. She doesn't like violence, but I refuse to believe she'd aid Landau just to keep Cagney away from a vengeance killing. I also can't believe that Landau's girl friend Dorothy Burgess would ever approach her with such a loony scheme.
George Raft has a bit part as a rival dancer to Cagney in a marathon dance contest. With the dancing background of both these guys, what a missed opportunity it was not to have them in a number together.
However Taxi is memorable for one thing. Cagney who learned to speak several languages growing up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, got a great chance to show off what fluent Yiddish was at his command in a great scene with a potential fare.
Straight from Delancey Street, darling.
Landau is the best thing in Taxi, a real brute of a guy whether he's the head goon of Consolidated Taxi or a hunted fugitive after he kills Cagney's brother.
Taxi is just the kind of stuff that Cagney was trying so hard to get away from, scripts like these were what he was constantly battling with Jack Warner over, Cagney wanted better and eventually got it. Young has little to do but be the valiant wife.
Who pulls something incredibly stupid in the script. At the beginning her father kills one of the Landau goons and goes to prison and dies there. She doesn't like violence, but I refuse to believe she'd aid Landau just to keep Cagney away from a vengeance killing. I also can't believe that Landau's girl friend Dorothy Burgess would ever approach her with such a loony scheme.
George Raft has a bit part as a rival dancer to Cagney in a marathon dance contest. With the dancing background of both these guys, what a missed opportunity it was not to have them in a number together.
However Taxi is memorable for one thing. Cagney who learned to speak several languages growing up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, got a great chance to show off what fluent Yiddish was at his command in a great scene with a potential fare.
Straight from Delancey Street, darling.