The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties tells the story of Eddie Bartlett, played by James Cagney, who opens the film diving into a foxhole in World War I France. There he meets fellow American soldiers George Hally, played by Humphrey Bogart, and Lloyd Hart. The three strike up a friendship. Soon, the war is over and the men head home, going their separate ways.

Eddie dreams of going back to work as a mechanic, but finds his job taken. He tries to find work, but times are tough and after a mixup gets him busted for delivering alcohol, he winds up a bootlegger. Along the way he reunites with Lloyd—now a lawyer—who helps Eddie setup a taxicab front-company for his booze distribution business, and George, a bootlegger himself who partners with Eddie. Together, they amass a fortune and ascend to the top of the New York bootlegging racket.

Eddie’s time on top doesn’t last long though, as he discovers Jean, his dream girl, and Lloyd are in love, and the stock-market crash forces him to sell his interest in the taxi company to George for a pittance. Broke and heartbroken, Eddie fades into obscurity.

Years pass and Eddie’s reduced to driving a cab. He picks up Jean, now married to Lloyd with a young son and sees the quaint life they’ve built together. Lloyd’s with the DA’s Office now and they’re building a case against George, who’s still riding high as a gangster. George sends a couple of thugs over to Jean’s house to suggest Lloyd drop his case, and a frightened Jean seeks out Eddie for help.

She finds him on a bender in a dive-bar, still carrying that torch after all these years. After hearing her story, Eddie goes to George, who figures both Lloyd and Eddie should go, on account of they know too much. Eddie kills George but takes a slug in the gut trying to escape and dies on the snow-covered steps of a church.

Despite the film’s decade-long timespan, The Roaring Twenties never feels like a sprawling epic, due to the script’s decision to focus on Cagney’s character. To the filmmakers, Eddie is a gangster with a conscience, an everyman forced into crime by world that keeps beating him down, be it as a forgotten soldier or a ruined investor.

The downside of this approach is the short shrift given to the George and Lloyd characters. Early on, Lloyd can’t bring himself to shoot a German soldier in the distance because, as Lloyd says, “He can’t be more than sixteen.” A heartbeat later George snipes the German with a smile. This scene represents the extent of their characterization.

It’s a flaw, but not a fatal one, as Cagney seems to be moving even when he’s standing still, and he’s so much fun to watch, you can overlook the aforementioned weak characterization and the predictable story. It’s only when his character dies that the film’s flaws come into focus, like the sand doubling for snow on the church steps.