City For Conquest (1940)

In order to support his musician brother (Arthur Kennedy), a truck driver (James Cagney) starts to box professionally. He begins to make a name for himself in the boxing world but is frustrated when the girl (Ann Sheridan) he loves chooses a career as a dancer over him. Based on the novel by Aben Kandel and directed by Anatole Litvak (THE SNAKE PIT). Typical Warners late thirties/early forties fodder complete with a tearjerker ending. I enjoyed the first section of the movie which was gritty and unsentimental but once Cagney loses his eyesight, it becomes soft and peters out complete with (literally) a Max Steiner symphony. Cagney is actually very good here, even when the script goes all sappy Cagney keeps his rugged persona. He fares better than the teary eyed Ann Sheridan, normally a good match for Cagney but the screenplay does her in. With Anthony Quinn (very good as Sheridan's sleazy dance partner), Donald Crisp, Lee Patrick, Frank McHugh, Joyce Compton, George Tobias and Elia Kazan, still in the acting phase of his career.