The roaring twenties

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Movie
German title The roaring twenties
Original title The Roaring Twenties
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1939
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Raoul Walsh
script Mark Hellinger
Robert Rossen
Richard Macauly
production Samuel Bischoff / Hal B. Wallis for Warner Bros.
music Ray Heindorf / Heinz Roemheld
camera Ernest Haller
cut Jack Killifer
occupation

The Roaring Twenties is a 1939 American film starring James Cagney and Priscilla Lane . A supporting role was cast with Humphrey Bogart . Directed by Raoul Walsh .

action

After the First World War , American veterans Lloyd Hart, George Hally and Eddie Bartlett, who met in the trenches in France , return to their hometown of New York City . Hart works as a lawyer, but Eddie lost his old job as a mechanic. He begins to get by as a taxi driver. The Prohibition offers him the chance to get as bootleggers to power and wealth. With assertiveness and toughness, he builds a gang of which he is the boss. On this path Hart accompanies him as legal advisor and the barmaid Panama. Panama is in love with Eddie, which Eddie ignores.

Eddie falls in love with young Jean and promotes her career as a singer. This occurs regularly in a whisper bar , which Eddie supplies with schnapps. Jean does not reciprocate, however, but falls in love with Hart. Eddie is in competition with the mighty bootlegger Nick Brown and Eddie decides to rob one of his ships. During a night robbery by Eddie's gang on a smuggler's ship , Eddie meets Hally again, who has also made it far as an alcohol smuggler through harshness and brutality. The two work together and expand their criminal businesses. During a nighttime raid on a liquor warehouse, Eddie and Hally meet their former front-line manager in France who works as a security guard. Although he is already overwhelmed on the ground, Hally murders him to get revenge on him. Hart ends his collaboration with them and Hally threatens to kill him if he should testify. Hart and Eddie end their friendship when Eddie realizes that Jean and Hart love each other.

After the economic crisis and the end of Prohibition, Eddie's career ended. He has to borrow money from Hally, who has built his own gang. He had suffered from serving only as a henchman in Eddie's gang. Eddie has to serve a jail sentence and ends up being an alcoholic taxi driver in misery. He meets Jean again by chance and drives her home in his taxi. Hart now works as a prosecutor, is married to Jean and they both have a son. Eddie sees the life in Jean that he could have had. After Eddie drives, Jean is threatened the next morning by Hally, who is still a successful gangster, as Hart is investigating Hally in the murder of the security guard. Jean goes to Eddie and asks him for help.

On New Year's Eve , Eddie visits Hally and asks him to leave Hart unharmed. Hally then decides to murder Eddie. In a violent showdown , however, Eddie frees himself, kills Hally and some of his bodyguards. On the run, one of the bodyguards shoots Eddie, who dies on the stairs of a church in the arms of Panama.

A police officer rushed to question Panama about the dead man. When asked who he was, she replies: “ He used to be a big shot ” (German: “He was once who”).

Stylistic devices

Between the action, scenes are repeatedly faded in that look like reports from newsreels . These explain the historical background of the plot.

The three main characters, Hart, Bartlett and Hally, who all get to know each other in the trenches, are supposed to reflect the facets of morality. While Hart has a noble character and Hally a depraved character, Bartlett is the one who is basically good at heart but who feels compelled to become a gangster by the circumstances. In Martin Scorsese's A journey through the American film (A Century Of Cinema - A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies ) is The Roaring Twenties mentioned. Above all, the final scene, which was staged like a Pietà , was particularly emphasized.

music

Reviews

“The semi-documentary film, which above all shines brightly on the prohibition period and the economic depression of 1929, has the features of a gangster film, but is more of a pessimistic, socially critical sketch. Excellent Humphrey Bogart as a failing loner. "

- Lexicon of international film

DVD release

The film was released on Warner Home Video on February 25, 2005 . The DVD contains the original English version as well as the German and Spanish versions. Numerous specials are included: an introduction by Leonard Maltin , an original documentary The Wild Twenties: The World Turns On (with Martin Scorsese , among others ) , the USA cinema trailer, excerpts from the newsreel, and two short films.

Web links