Frisco Kid ** (1935, James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Lili Damita, Donald Woods, Barton MacLane) – Classic Movie Review 12,311

Frisco Kid (1935, James Cagney).

Frisco Kid (1935) starring James Cagney: ‘He’s the Two-Fisted Hero of the Square Mile of Hell the Devil Himself Disowned!’ 

Director Lloyd Bacon’s 1935 film Frisco Kid stars James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Lili Damita, Donald Woods, and Barton MacLane.

James Cagney plays sailor Bat Morgan, who battles 1860s West Coast mobs for power, and nearly comes a cropper when a lynch mob try to kill him for a murder he didn’t commit, but his true-blue lover Jean Barrat (Margaret Lindsay) saves the day.

Cagney seems uncomfortable in wing collar and brocaded waistcoat in Warner Bros’ undistinguished action adventure film set on San Francisco’s Barbary Coast.

But the cast does its best with the under-developed characters and Bacon directs with a good eye for period atmosphere.

Also in the cast are Fred Kohler, George E Stone, Addison Richards, Joe King, Robert McWade, Robert Strange, Joseph Crehan, Joe Sawyer, Edward McWade, Claudia Coleman, John Wray, John Elliott, Lew Harvey, Milton Kibbee, Dick Kerr, Walter Long, Jim Farley, Robert Dudley, John T Dillon, Don Barclay, William Desmond, and Walter Long.

In 1980 Cagney said he had recently seen it on TV and disliked it.

It is one of four films Cagney made with Margaret Lindsay.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,311

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

James Cagney in White Heat.