Midnight Oil:Movies and More

Tales from a Swamp Sauna

It was an unusual one-two punch on Saturday Night at the Movies on TVOntario this week. First we saw “Cross Creek”, the 1983 autobiographical film about author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Next we saw the film production of one of Rawlings’ most well-known and best loved novels, “The Yearling”.

As the heat has dragged on this long hot summer, I have often felt like I am living in my own personal swamp sauna. My Mom has told me that on many days this July there hasn’t been much of a difference between the temperatures in Southern Ontario and those in Florida .

Both of these films do a good job of evoking a sense of atmosphere and place. You may not be able to feel the heat while watching the movie, but you do get a sense of the long languid days in the back country of Florida . It is a time before air conditioning and time sharing condos, before Wal-Mart and adult-living gated communities in the deep South.

“Cross Creek” is a slow-paced film. This will drive some people crazy. Nothing much seems to happen for a long time. You are left looking at the scenery and examining the people who happen to pop in on Ms. Rawlings self-induced reclusive existence. But I guess that that is what you are supposed to do if you’re a writer – and this is a story about being a writer.

I know it drives my husband crazy – all that sitting around, inspecting people and places, mulling it over in your head and just wanting to be still and alone – how can you stand it! How can he stand it! My husband has to “go places, meet people and do things” in order to be happy. All of this settin’ and thinkin’, just settling down in one place and letting it seep into your bones, well, it is incomprehensible to active, people-oriented types like my beloved hubby. Such differences in temperament and orientation can put quite a strain on a marriage.

Sadly, it appears that a compromise of mutual understanding could not be worked out in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ first marriage. In the story, Ms. Rawlings leaves her marriage behind in order to go off to Cross Creek and pursue her career and calling as a writer. Oddly enough, the hardships she encounters in having to make a living out of her orange grove in order to support her writing career as well as the assortment of colourful local characters who enter her daily life (the type of people she never would have rubbed shoulders with in New York society life) cause the would-be writer to find her own voice. The experience of living in Cross Creek provides the subject matter for Rawlings’ later novels and short stories.

Rip Torn as Marsh Turner, Alfre Woodard as Geechee, and Dana Hill as Ellie Turner all received nominations for their work as supporting actors. Each creates a memorable role that brings the Creek to life for the viewer.

Some have complained that Mary Steenburgen is too genteel to play the gutsy and sometimes hard drinking Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Since I have no firsthand knowledge of the lady herself, I have no idea if Mary Steenburgen does justice to the historical accuracy of the biography. Steenburgen’s apparent delicacy of physical presence and mannerism does make the contrast more stark and the story more interesting in my opinion. Mary Steenburgen’s particular presence continues to remind you that Ms. Rawlings is not very well adapted for such a primitive life in the back lands. I am not sure that Mary Steenburgen is totally believable in the role, but the casting selection is at least interesting.

There are a couple of things you do believe after watching the film. You know that being a writer is hard work. You are utterly convinced that making an orange grove productive is tough going. And you think that being dirt poor, while it might make for interesting characterizations in a novel, is probably not much fun - not that all of this negativity makes for a depressing movie. Although both of these films deal with some pretty harsh realities of life, neither comes off as projecting a pessimistic vision of things.

The Interviews at intermission were a collage of reflections by Hollywood personalities on “What the Movies Mean to Me”. Some referred to the intensely personal, intimate and at the same time collective experience of watching movies. Others highlighted the “magic” of the creative experience of either making movies or viewing them and being transported into realms of the imagination. For many, the reason why movies are important, meaningful and endlessly fascinating is because they are about people. Life is about people and so are the movies.

The comments I found most interesting were about movies as meaning makers. “Why do we look at any piece of art?” was the question posed by one person interviewed. Somehow, examining art helps us to arrive at deeper understandings about life. It helps one to explore issues of meaning of life experiences. A similar thought was expressed by someone else who said that movies were not just a way of escaping one’s own life, but an escape into another way of seeing the world. Through viewing other people’s lives on-screen, one can experience life in a potentially transformative way.

Another was more direct in saying that for him, movies took on a function that religion once occupied. Movies supply coherence, offer lessons and insights, provide examples to emulate or avoid, and explore answers to the big questions of life as to why things happen as they do in our universe. For this person, participating in the making of movies was a way of influencing society that took on the proportions of a religious crusade; since religions have failed to provide the answers that people are looking for, the movies step in and fill the vacuum of meaning makers.

“Cross Creek” was certainly the kind of film that lends itself to this type of self definition. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings goes through a kind of conversion experience in finding herself as a writer. Ms. Rawlings escapes from her old way of life in order to find her real mission in life. By associating with her experience of secular religion, the movie viewer can find their own vision of life transformed at some level through the transformation and discovery of meaning taking place in Rawlings’ life.

I liked this movie. I think that “what it had to say” was worth examining. It also seemed to me that the film was sufficiently entertaining in its manner of presentation. I really do get into this thing of exploring other realities through film. However, I also think that there is something to be said for having my own transforming experiences unmediated by the experiences and perspectives of others.

“The Yearling ”, a MGM production of the adaptation of Rawlings’ novel by the same name, could be considered a classic family film. My family could not have watched the movie together because the ending would have been too upsetting for the kids. It just wouldn’t make sense for them that Jody had to shoot his deer because he ate some corn out of a field.

Gregory Peck gives a fine performance in this film as Ezra Baxter. Peck’s performance captures the dilemma of a man caught between his conflicting impulses to be tough and tender with his one remaining child. Ezra Baxter is entirely committed to doing what is best for his family. Sometimes he vacillates between trying to extend the innocence and freedom from responsibility of his son’s childhood to trying to shove him toward grown-up behaviour. It is hard to know what to do as a parent. The best course of action is not always that simple and straightforward.

The challenges that Ezra faces as a parent may be quite different those of most of us in the modern day; he faces marauding bears, the threat of starvation, cruel infectious disease and physical infirmity with no social safety net apart from his one young son.

Jane Wyman as Orry Baxer is less impressive in my opinion as the bereft mother of the pioneering family. Claude Jarman Jr. as Jody plays the dreamy boy who longs to be a man. Supposedly, the original choice for the character of Jody was a boy with a thick local accent. I guess someone thought it was better to have an actor with a more understandable accent. Too bad. In retrospect, a more authentic accent might have been fun, even if it was little hard on the ears. Even without the accent, “The Yearling” is likely to continue in its status as an enduring American classic.

Another classic was recognizable in the film. In a kind of an extended reverie sequence where Jody is running through the woods with his fawn, one suddenly notices a familiar piece of Delius running through the scene. I thought it was an interesting innovation for 1946. The music combined with overlaying shots of a herd of deer succeeds in communicating non-verbally something about the half-wild state of Jody and his fawn. It is more of a sensation evoked by the audio-visual experience rather than an idea constructed out of dialogue or narrative. Since I am ignorant of Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s original novel, I cannot say whether this sequence imitates something that the author wrote into her novel. Should this be the case, and I think that it probably is, it would be an interesting example of a transposition from one medium to another.

Some people who comment on this film criticize it for being too “saccharine”. Perhaps some people too stuck in a brain space much immersed in turn of the 21st century post-modernism would find this film too maudlin for their personal taste. What could be called the “traditional American family values” depicted in this film are often hyper-allergenic for such individuals. I don’t agree with such criticisms. I think that the film stops short of turning to the saccharine sweet. Bittersweet I think is a more accurate description of the flavour of this movie. I consider bittersweet a more interesting taste experience worthy of a second look.

Suggested Reading :

• An earlier version of “The Yearling” and filmed on location in “ Cross Creek , Florida ” – See IMDb trivia
• Borocay Island in the South Pacific: a writer finds transforming purpose
• Stuck in Between : Growing Up is Hard to Do
• Growing up Free: Parenting is Hard to Do

Next time on Saturday Night at the Movies by TVO at 8pm EST catch a couple of "whodunnits", "Deathtrap" (1982) with Michael Cain and Christopher Reeve and "The Last of Sheila" (1973) directed by Herbert Ross.

Gary Cooper plays Alvin C. York, a reluctant hero from WWI.

A Quaker family faces various tests to their faith and values occasioned by the encroaching Civil War.

Would Scarlett have Been Better as a Blond?

It's a question I have had. Would Scarlett have chosen to be a blond if she could make the choice? Would it have made a difference? Hmmm.

Catch you later Scarlett.

Battle with the Bottle

This week’s first feature on Saturday Night at the Movies on TVO was the famous and entertaining A Star is Born with Judy Garland and James Mason playing the lead parts. The second feature, Star 80, could well have been subtitled A Porn Star is Born.

After a few minutes one hot and steamy night in June, I decided that I didn’t need to put up with explorations into the seedy side of the creation of a Playboy Bunny. A few minutes of watching Paul Snider smear his victim’s blood all over himself was enough for me to “get the picture”. I am sure that the film has many interesting things to say. It explores exploitation, pornography and obsession. Based on a true story about Playboy Playmate, Dorothy Stratten, and told in flashback, I am sure that the uncomplimentary view of the wonderful world of porn had something to offer. It just wasn’t the kind of thing I was looking for that night.

Judy Garland had plum tuckered me out with all that singing and dancing. It was a rather long haul for someone who is not a great fan of Judy Garland. As many have said before, it was a rather long film. Even in the abridged version, which I believe is the one we watched on TVO, it was a long production. (Apparently, additional film footage does exist and even a few more minutes of sound track without the recuperated visual. It was dropped before the original release because of complaints about the film’s length.)

A part of me really likes those old fashioned musicals. I like being entertained. I love the colour, the glitz, the energy, and, above all, the dancing. Where can you see dancing like that today? It’s not very available, at least, not on-screen. They don’t make’em like that anymore.

There are a number of things that I found a bit odd besides the film’s length. I understand that the way the film was made, it sort of grew bigger and bigger until it got just too big. The original story, which had already been made into a movie twice over, was expanded upon in order to add depth to characterization and to incorporate stage vehicles to show off Judy’s talents. This film in 1954 constituted Judy’s personal come-back to the big screen after her contract with the MGM studio had been cancelled three years earlier, evidently due to her own problems with substance abuse.

Can one possibly overlook the irony of seeing Judy Garland playing Esther Blodgett opposite James Mason in the role of Norman Maine? Judy’s own personal history somewhat mirrors things that are depicted in the film. It was Judy herself who was more or less “Born in a Trunk”. She grew up singing and dancing in a vaudeville family. Judy changed her name from the unsightly Frances Ethel Gumm to Judy Garland for the benefit of show biz. The young Judy Garland surely had people around her who made sure that she appeared at the right time and in the right place in order to break into the business. (Who is it that puts a two year old on the stage in an act singing Jingle Bells other than her parents?) In A Star is Born, Norman Maine engineers Ethel’s off-screen screen-test by placing the songbird strategically under the window of the movie mogul, Oliver Niles. I haven’t read an extensive biography of Judy Garland, but it appears that her personal life was probably intertwined much of the time with her professional career. Sidney Luft, husband number four out of a total of five husbands, was the one married to Judy for the longest stretch – 13 years before the divorce came. Luft was the producer for A Star is Born. It appears that this film was a part of a conscious effort on Luft’s part to get his wife working again, a story not so far removed from the memorable scene where Niles and Vicki cook up a scheme in her dressing room to get Norman on his feet again by offering him a small part in an upcoming movie. Judy was certainly not washed up in her career by the time she made A Star is Born in 1954. There were many more good acts to follow. But, there were, let us say, “problems” that interfered with Ms. Garland’s professional life.

The most dramatic parallel between what happens in the movie and real life is, of course, the untimely death of a big star. Because movie stars are very public figures, everything about them, including death, happens in the public eye. Norman Maine plays the hero and walks out into the sea never to return in an effort to spare his wife further heartache and ruin. In other words, he commits suicide. A mob scene of crazed fans at the funeral reveals just how distorted and inhuman celebrity life in Hollywood has become. The official spin from the publicity department on the story is that Norman Maine suffered from an accidental drowning. Thus, Mrs. Norman Maine can derive some sort of comfort from the accolades paid to her in the last scene of the film on behalf of her deceased husband. Public opinion may be fickle and heartless, but Vicki Lester still wants (and needs?) the applause in her moment of tragedy. The official story on Judy Garland’s own premature death at 47 is that she died from an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

Apparently the beginnings of that story occurred much earlier in Judy’s life when, in order to keep up with the intense pace of churning out all of those films as a child and adolescent star, the young Judy was given doses of amphetamines and barbiturates in order for her to be at her “peak” performance - as if Judy’s talent wasn’t enough for the studio. Somehow, someone believed that her performance needed to be “enhanced”. And you thought that that scumbag of a pimp, Paul Snider,was bad!

At one point when Vicki Lester is taking a powder in her dressing room, Niles walks in. A pivotal moment ensues as a tearful Vicki confesses that “Love is not enough. I thought it was. I thought I was the answer for Norman . But love isn’t enough for him.” Vicki is at the end of her tether in dealing with Norman ’s addictions. Niles and Vicki go on to concoct a rescue plan to help Norman get out of the dry-out private clinic and back into films. It doesn’t work. In this scene, Vicki exposes more than her own raw emotions. She exposes some honest truths about the losing battle with substance abuse, something that one sees treated only rarely in Hollywood films up until this point. I might find Judy Garland’s performance in this scene a bit overblown, but, nevertheless, I am willing to honour the truth she tells in this scene. Loving an addict is a “no win” situation. Love alone will not change things. The suffocating stranglehold of substance abuse is fatal, if slow-acting in many cases. In this, the filmmakers of A Star is Born have the courage to overturn one of the most foundational myths upon which Hollywood film is built: the myth that love conquers all.

This is one of the “oddities” that I find a little disconcerting about the film. The heavy subject matter and searing criticism of the Hollywood star-making machinery seem to be at odds with the chosen genre. The musical is usually rightly reserved for much sunnier themes and lighter fare. Sure, it’s a great way to showcase Judy Garland’s considerable talents as an entertainer, but . . . I am not sure that it really “works” in combination with the weight of the drama of the subject matter. It seems to me to be yet another way in which the film trips up in terms of its pacing. I sort of feel like the audience is being asked to be a bit like Vicki Lester during the Lose the Long Face routine. Always the consummate actress, Vicki goes from wiping her copious tears behind the scenes in the dressing room to being thrown into the middle of this song and dance routine with a big (fake) grin on her face; it just doesn’t fit somehow. I get a bit dizzy with the change in gears.

Even though I am not a Judy Garland fan and even though I would say that there are some flaws in this film, I still enjoyed it. I still found it worth watching. Yes, the rather primitive Vicki Lester in-home entertainment unit – the funny and touching scene where Vicki “performs” for her husband in the living room of their Malibu beach house – is representative. It is a bit corny, but I liked watching it anyways. To her credit, you can count on Judy to put on a good show.

Next week, July 2, catch Gone with the Wind (1939) with Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh at 8pm on on TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies

Suggested reading :

• What do “The Wizard of Oz” and “A Star is Born” have in common besides their star, Judy Garland? See IMDb trivia.
• Beating the battle with the bottle: an inside story
• Doing it my way: confessions of an addictive personality. 
• What a Playboy Bunny might want you to know about her job

Blowing in the Wind

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the bathroom . . .but more about that later.

This week on Saturday Night at the Movies two tough guy movies were on the bill of fare. I must say that I was looking forward with much anticipation to viewing once again “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. The second feature, “Angels with Dirty Faces”, was one that I had not seen before.

In “Angels with Dirty Faces”, James Cagney starred as Rocky Sullivan playing opposite Pat O’Brien as his childhood buddy turned priest, Father Jerry Connelly. Even though this film was unknown to me and I did not know how it turned out in the end, it did not hold my attention the way that “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” did.

“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” was simply a much better film. Both films star Humphrey Bogart in roles where he portrays an unsavoury character: Jim Frazier, the sleazy lawyer in “Angels” and Fred C. Dobbs, the paranoid would-be prospector in “Sierra Madre”. The plots of both movies are somewhat predictable: the central figures become entrapped in a downward spiral of crime and violence while they pursue material gain. It all ends in disaster – the electric chair for Sullivan and decapitation in a dirty mud hole for Dobbs.

Much could be said and has been said about the undiluted use and authenticity of the Mexican location and of Mexican actors without translation in “Sierra Madre”. The excellent film score, while providing great “mood music”, might be seen as intrusive by some in the way it cues the emotions that we are supposed to be feeling during the film. Walter Huston is absolutely wonderful as the indefatigable and utterly likeable Howard. Can you believe that his own son, John Huston, directed him in this great performance?

 My interest in “Angels with Dirty Faces” picked up only towards the end with the execution scene. This scene brought to mind the riveting treatment of capital punishment in America depicted in “Dead Man Walking” (1995) with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Although I found that the emotional tension conveyed by the execution scene was nothing to compare with that created in “Dead Man Walking”, I did find that this was the most interesting bit of the film.

Will Rocky play the tough guy all the way to the gallows or will he do as Father Connelly asks in order to save the kids from a life of crime by turning chicken for the press gallery? Is Rocky really so tough after all? Is he beyond redemption? Cagney plays the part in an ambiguous way. In his cell just before the execution, he continues to sneer, swagger and sling one-liners at the guards as the rest of the inmates on death row cheer him on. However, as the action of the scene begins, the camera hones in on Cagney holding a cigarette in a hand that trembles noticeably. As a device to heighten the adrenalin while protecting squeamish sensibilities, we do not actually see Rocky getting electrocuted – we just hear the screams. We hear Rocky crying and screaming pathetically just before the moment of execution. However, it is also reported that Rocky spits in the eye of the guard who was strapping him into the chair. Is Rocky defiant to the bitter end or does he engage in one last magnificent gesture of selflessness by acting the part of the repentant and cowardly criminal? It is hard to tell.

The press corps and Father Connelly each have their own read on these final events in the life of the gangster. It is a reading of the events that serves their own purposes: to make money through sensationalism for the newspapers and to save souls from hellfire for the Church. It seems to me that the character of Rocky himself was much more ambiguous than such a simplistic reading of the action permits. Unlike the maniacal mobster we saw Cagney play a few weeks ago in “White Heat”, this gangster movie goes to great lengths to show that Rocky Sullivan is a bad guy who was made, not born. Rocky has a human side. It shows through with his love interest, Laury (Ann Sheridan), with his boyhood friend, Jerry, and when he messes around with the kids. If Rocky, underneath his tough guy image, had no heart, then one supposes that there would be no real dramatic tension in that final execution scene. Bad guys who are bad through and through, well, you don’t feel so bad about them getting the chair. Bad guys like Rocky who got a few tough breaks in life, but who have a heart peeking through the gangster persona, well, you have mixed feelings about seeing them get fried.

 So when does the bad guy turn bad? Where does the bad come from; the inside or the outside? Both of these films explore these questions about human nature in an interesting and entertaining fashion.

Take Fred C. Dobbs, for instance, a part played so magnificently by Humphrey Bogart in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. When we first meet Dobbs on the streets of Tampico, he is a penniless vagrant with nothing but the shirt on his back. We see that the character played by Bogart is, at least in the beginning, an essentially decent fellow. When Dobbs and Curtin are cheated out of their hard earned pay by the welcher, McCormick, they beat him up in a barroom brawl. The fight scene ends with Dobbs and Curtin taking only what they are owed and throwing the rest of the money back in McCormick’s battered face. By the time Dobbs walks out of the hills with his bags of gold and meets his untimely demise at the hands of the banditos, he is a murderous, paranoid traitor obsessed by greed. Dobbs has attempted to murder his friend, stolen the gold belonging to his partner and mentor (Howard), and given the cold shoulder to the practice of mercy (e.g. the half-drowned Indian boy and providing for Cody’s widow).

What happened “out in them thar hills”?

I was watching a replay of “Sierra Madre” on video the Sunday following Saturday Night at the Movies. It was just getting to the part where Dobbs attempts to murder Curtin after a spat about (what else?) the gold. Dobbs leaves Curtin, who unbeknownst to him, is only wounded back in the bush. Dobbs returns to the camp to sit by the fire and ruminate on the recent events: “Your conscience – it can pester you to death. Makes me sick with all of this talking and fussing – (Dobbs is the only one present. He is talking to himself.) But if you don’t believe in it, what can it do to you?”

 At this point, the camera focuses on the campfire in the foreground. The fire goes from being a domesticated little campfire to the leaping flames of a raging inferno. Taken in conjunction with Dobbs’ remarks about the pangs of conscience, I suppose that one is supposed to be reminded of the flames of hellfire. If you ignore your conscience and refuse to believe what it is saying to you, what can happen to you? Even if you don’t believe in literal hellfire (there is evidence in the film that Dobbs does believe in such a thing) at the very least, the flames could be said to represent the corrosive effect of Fred C. Dobb’s own greed on his personhood.

And then it happened. I had to stop the video to go to the bathroom. I clicked off the video machine and left the T.V. set on with T.V.O.’s programme “Big Ideas” playing in the background. When I returned, who should appear on the screen immediately after the hellfire scene but the most Reverend John Spong speaking to us from St. Barnabas church in Toronto? See what happened in my encounter with the reverend .

I am back now after that most diverting little excursus into history and theology. I flicked the video machine back on and continued to watch “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. Early on in the film, before the trio actually set out to go prospecting for gold, there is a little piece of dialogue between Curtin and Dobbs. Howard, the old prospector has asserted that gold is a curse, that it inevitably corrupts men’s souls, his own soul included. Dobbs wonders aloud if this is true. He says, “It seems to me that gold can be as much of a blessing as it is a curse. What do you think?” (posing the question to Curtin) Curtin replies, “I suppose it depends on the man – on what’s in him.”

 Another slightly different take on the issue of the corruption of greed and the human condition is found in Howard’s mouth late in the film. As Howard bandages up Curtin’s wounds inflicted by the murderous Dobbs, he says in his homespun philosophy kind of way, “I don’t blame him (Dobbs) too much. He’s not a real killer. Dobbs is as honest as the next fellow. The mistake was that big temptation – nearly $100,000 in gold. No, my mistake was leaving you two out there alone with that gold. I might have been tempted too if I was a lot younger and I was out there with you.”

At the conclusion, Fred C. Dobbs ends up with his head rolling off into a mud hole, chopped off by a machete courtesy of some greedy Mexican banditos who value his boots more than his bags of gold. It is an absurd situation. Dobbs was never in the mood to laugh though it seems after the gold got hold of him. It seems that Dobbs can quote his Sunday school teacher, an influential moral authority in his life it would appear, but not live out what she taught: “My Sunday School teacher used to say you have to learn to swallow disappointments in this sad life.” Curtin and Howard, on the other hand, appear to have learned this lesson well. Curtin goes from being obsessed with getting his gold back and seeking revenge on Dobbs to laughing uproariously along with Howard when they find out that their ten months of hard work and thousands of dollars in gold are gone with the wind. All that is left is a little canvas sack stuck to a prickly cactus.

Howard, through a few lucky breaks and his own genius for accommodating to people and situations will be taken care of for life by the grateful Indian villagers. Curtin too escapes the clutches of destructive greed through an odd combination of fate, character, and his own choices. He can’t seek revenge on Dobbs because Dobbs is already dead. Curtin’s naturally positive outlook and generous spirit cause him to look North with hope to peach groves in Texas and to Cody’s widow. He is ready to get on with the next chapter of his life. There seems to be an element of choice in Curtin’s “attitude adjustment” at the end of the film. We see him go through some kind of emotional and moral process of letting go as he talks out loud to Howard and himself about the horrors of the fate of Fred C. Dobbs and an evaluation of his own current state: “After all, when the worst happens, it’s not so bad. I’m really no worse off than I was in Tampico. I’m out about $200. That’s not much to lose in comparison to what Dobb’s lost.

Curtin is no hero of ethical behaviour. Remember that he cast his vote in favour of murdering the unfortunate Cody when push came to shove. In this movie at least, it seems to that a guy like Curtin stumbles his way to survival and virtue than anything else. Maybe Curtin will be a better man in the future for all of his experiences on the Sierra Madre, or maybe he won’t. If one adopts the fatalistic perspective of Howard, temptation, if you are unlucky enough to be exposed to such a thing, is pretty much irresistible for mere humans; it’s better to take things easy, wiser to stay out of harm’s way, and more fun to laugh at the good and the bad that life brings along.

Next week on TVOnrario's Saturday Night at the Movies, June 25 at 8pm EST, “A Star is Born” with Judy Garland and James Mason.

Suggested reading:

• “Angels . . .” Supposedly, the Dead End kids used in the movie terrorized everyone on the movie set with their rowdy behviour and Cagney used the mannerisms of a real pimp he knew from Hell’s Kitchen in New York to enliven the character of Rocky Sullivan. See more . . .
• The original dope on being human and being tempted: James 1:13-15.
• Has your stuff got a hold on you? – Words from a recovering shopaholic