Hollywood’s power manifests in its ability to reframe US and world history on its terms. One of the most telling examples is an entire historical period being named after the title of a Hollywood film. That was The Roaring Twenties, the 1939 gangster film directed by Raoul Walsh. The period depicted is considered one of the most dynamic, lively and is generally seen as the most decadent in US history. In the 1920s, the United States established itself as a new world power, largely on account of getting rich while Europe ruined itself with the First World War. Living standards were rising, a new urban middle class emerged, mass‑produced motor cars became status symbols, and radio, sound film and other new wonders of technology appeared. Huge changes were also noted in culture. Prohibition, intended to “correct” America and partly based on conservative principles, instead spawned not only the rise of modern organised crime, but also contributed to a rising liberal and hedonistic mindset embodied in women’s short skirts and jazz music.
The film is based on The World Moves On, a 1938 book by journalist Mark Hellinger. The period is depicted through the story of Eddie Bartlett (played by James Cagney), an ordinary New Yorker who, after serving in the US military during the First World War, returned home and, like millions of his countrymen, saw the widely unpopular Prohibition as an opportunity to get rich quickly. Cagney’s character, unlike those he played in classic 1930s gangster films like The Public Enemy or Angels with Dirty Faces, isn’t a psychopath or hardened criminal. The Roaring Twenties, unlike many other classic gangster films from the era, doesn’t have a strong social component and instead puts more emphasis on nostalgia. Made at the end of the traumatic decade of the Great Depression, when memories of the world destroyed by the Wall Street Crash were fading away, The Roaring Twenties offered a glimpse of that carefree world, which suddenly began to look as fantastic as those in escapist musicals.
That, of course, doesn’t mean that The Roaring Twenties isn’t made according to the written and unwritten rules of 1930s Hollywood. Bartlett, as an ordinary character, is surrounded by two less ordinary characters that serve as moral archetypes. One is the greedy and ruthless George Haly (played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his last villainous roles) and the other is the idealistic Lloyd Hart (played by Jeffrey Lynn), who decides to switch bootlegging for the less lucrative but more honest career of a lawyer. Bartlett confronts Hart over the charming bar singer Jean Sherman (played by Priscilla Lane), who serves as a stand‑in for America’s future. Since Hart, in the scenes near the end of the film, makes a clear allusion to FDR and his New Deal policies as the antithesis of 1920s greed and corruption, it isn’t hard to conclude which of the two Jean will choose in the end.
The Roaring Twenties is, however, a fascinating film even when watched outside its political, cultural or economic context. Walsh, one of the most prolific and experienced directors of Classic Hollywood, is able not only to extract the maximum from his cast (including Cagney, with whom he would ten years later work on White Heat, another classic) but also shows great skill in handling a plot and stories that are as fascinating now as they were nine decades ago. Walsh, using black‑and‑white cinematography, combines live action and documentary footage to comment on important historic events in the background, a technique that would later become the norm in period films. The most important thing about The Roaring Twenties is that its story and characters might look very familiar to people from other places who had the misfortune of experiencing certain times that the Chinese curse calls “interesting”.
RATING: 9/10 (++++)
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