James Cagney obviously didn't put his heart into this film, and it's hard to blame him, considering what a thoroughgoing piece of garbage his character is. Controlling his younger brother's life, showing ever greater contempt for his long- and loud-suffering lover, competitive to the point of causing a supposed friend's death on the race track, he's nothing but loathsome throughout. Ann Dvorak doesn't help by constantly overemoting (she makes every line sound as if she's about to cry), but then how realistically could anyone play her character's undying love for someone with no redeeming qualities? Joan Blondell is wasted as a femme fatale turned Good Girl, and the script is beyond predictable, though never believable.
Review of The Crowd Roars
