Taxi! (1932)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Roy Del Ruth

Writers:

Kenyon Nicholson (play)
Kubec Glasmon (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

23 January 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Independent cab drivers struggling against a taxi company consortium find a leader in Matt Nolan.

Plot Keywords:

Taxi Driver | Beautiful Woman | Murder | Gangster | Dance Contest

Cast

James Cagney	...	Matt Nolan
Loretta Young	...	Sue Riley Nolan
George E. Stone	...	Skeets
Guy Kibbee	...	Pop Riley
Leila Bennett	...	Ruby
Dorothy Burgess	...	Marie Costa
David Landau	...	Buck Gerard
Ray Cooke	...	Danny Nolan

Also Known As:

Taxi, Please (USA) (working title)
The Blind Spot (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

USA:69 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Yiddish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #2281-R, 14 May 1936 for re-release)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

For the scene where Matt Nolan hauls his wife Sue across the room by her hair and throws her out the door, James Cagney taught Loretta Young an old stage trick. When Cagney grabbed her hair, Young reached up and grabbed Cagney's wrist with both hands. As Cagney pulled her screaming across the room, Young was actually hanging from Cagney's wrist. This trick, and Young's performance, made the gag look quite real, but prevented Cagney from pulling her hair out.

Quotes:

Marie Costa: Leave 'em alone. They're not botherin' you.
Buck Gerard: Yeah? How do you know?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Wind at My Back: Grace of Hollywood (#3.10)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Georgia on My Mind

A taste of things to come

Taxi! is most famous as an early starring role for James Cagney and more so for the fact he shows off his Yiddish-speaking skills. A great factor in this film is the variety of genuine New York accents on display throughout. Music to the ears! The plot line is a bit fractured, zipping from cab wars, to romance, to murder, and all that jazz. Cagney is an independent driver trying to rally the other cabbies to fight the big taxi company trying to violently run them all out of business. A fracas in a nightclub on his wedding night results in the stabbing death of his brother and he vows revenge.

Cagney plays a sometimes likable, sometimes obnoxious guy with a rotten temper. His violent outbursts are a sign of things to come in Cagney's cast of characters. He is electric even with subpar material. And, of course, he dances on screen for the first time. A very young and beautiful Loretta Young is a smarter romantic partner than Cagney usually got. By the way, her hairstyle is lovely. Leila Bennett steals the movie as a droning chatterbox who could have an hour-long conversation by herself. Most people know someone exactly like her.

Cultural points: We are treated to an early version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind" at the Cottonpickers Club. The Warner Bros. film takes a slam at Paramount's Fredric March - whose early film roles were more than reminiscent of John Barrymore. For the brief foxtrot contest, Cagney suggested producers hire George Raft as his main competitor because he remembered his dancing ability from their time in Vaudeville. Raft was in Hollywood as a bit dancer and had no notion of becoming an actor - that would change within a year. This is one of only two films these very good friends appeared in together (See "Each Dawn I Die" nearly 10 years later).