G Men (1935)

The genre of gangster pictures rose out of the 1930s with famous titles like The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface.  The most successful studio producing such features was Warner Bros., known for making edgier pictures with strong social commentary, depicting a grittier side of life compared to the sugar coated world many Hollywood films presented on screen.  In 1934 the Hays Office strictly enforced the production code, a set code of ethics which governed what was decidedly morally correct to be depicted on screen, a filter by which all major films would have to meet n order to be released widely to audiences.  As a direct counteraction to the criticism and moral ethics presented within the gangster films produced at the time, Warner Bros would release G Men, a picture about the tough do-good government men that fought the war on organized crime, starring one of the most famous gangster actors of the period, James Cagney, in the most moral of leading roles.

G Men is a gangster film about the FBI agents that fight the war on organized crime in the US, and how they had to change the system in order to better defeat the enemies of justice to defend the right. James Cagney stars as Brick Davis a young starving lawyer entering the FBI as a “G Man” after the death of a friend at the hands of powerful criminals. Ever eager to make important changes in society Brick butts heads with his hard headed instructor Jeff McCord (Robert Armstrong). Before joining the G Men Brick was friends with crime boss Mac MacKay who paid for Brick’s education, that he would stay on the morally right side of the law. With Brick’s knowledge of the criminal world he helps to defeat gangsters who would find loopholes in the system. At first the G Men as unable to pursue criminals that cross state lines and were not even able to carry fire arms according to law. With a push on new laws, the G Men become a force to be reckoned with as they chase a mob that are hiding in a lodge deep in the wood of Wisconsin, and though loosing good friends, including a former lover and his old mentor, Brick knows what he is doing is right for America.

By all means G Men is the anti-gangster film, a picture that is the complete flip of what was popular in the genre in the years prior to the release. Before this picture gangster films manifested criminals as somewhat sympathetic characters, among other things showing off a free living, lavish, successful lifestyle which in a way captured the American Dream. Yes, the criminals would eventual pay for their crimes, ultimately leading to their death, but for the most part they were seen enjoying life. Besides that lawmen many times in these films were seen as aides to the criminal world, crooked and persuaded by greed. G Men would be the squeaky clean version of the story seen from the heroic moral side of the crime, with an infallible main character that wished only to do right and nothing else. Not only that, but the star from The Public Enemy, one of the genres biggest titles, would play the role of the main G Man in question. Viewing it from this aspect the film is quite boring as Brick is a very two dimensional character; one that had feelings and can be hurt, but is never swayed or tempted to do evil.

The film coincidentally parallels the rise of the FBI as an institution on the rise in the public eye. The FBI would be weary of a film about their department and how it would be referenced in fiction, but in time department head J. Edgar Hoover would approve of the story and in fact embrace it as a tool to shine a good light on a department that eager for public approval. The film manifests the Bureau hiring men of great education in law, when in fact the men usually learned on the job. This helped sugar coated the FBI into a mighty vision of justice in the American mindset with the aide of many other media production to release in the coming years, including comic books and radio dramas fixing an endearing image to the more naive public.

Directed by unknown filmmaker William Keighley, a former stage actor, the solid production would be anchored by its stars, namely Cagney and Armstrong. Cagney was by now a well known and well respected actor of the genre as well as for his natural skill of dancing, which he greatly enjoyed. His tough guy persona was perfect for what the film needed in Brick Davis, instead of a fresh faced college boy the role inclined to. Armstrong would play his superior, but was far from being such in real life. Armstrong was best known for his role as Carl Denham in the epic King Kong, and carried his natural demeanor as a tough leader with him, but his acting would never be up to par with the great leading men of the time, coming off as two dimensional in most of his roles, thus being more or less a character actor.

Brick Davis would be given two love interests in the film. First would be played by Ann Dvorak as the sympathetic nightclub star that Brick must leave behind when he departs for Washington. By this time Dvorak was a solid leading lady for Warner Bros. with great range to carry the character with the widest emotional spectrum in the film. Though technically a supporting role, Dvorak’s character, Jean, supplies a great drive to the picture, leading Brick to major plot points. Margaret Lindsay would play Kay, McCord’s little sister and love interest to Brick once he is part of the force.  Kay would be kidnapped near the end of the picture, climaxing with the film’s shootout. Lindsay was a less rounded actress, a pupil of an acting academy, who had been used a number of times as a love interest to Cagney characters in the years leading up to this picture. 1935 would be a big and very busy year for Lindsay though, with six films, including her Oscar winning role in Dangerous.

G Men was a film that played under different rules for the gangster films in the previous years. A closer look shows the criminal characters were given less attractive firepower than films in prior years. They would not be allowed to use their most popular weapon of choice, the tommy gun, to romanticize the life of crime. Mainly armed with simple hand guns and rifles, the gangsters look far less armed than in other popular stories of the time. In contrast the law enforcement characters were the ones presented with the greater weaponry as declared by the new film codes. The G Men were armed with the tommy guns, high powered rifles, and heavy machinery. This is intentionally done by movie censors to make criminals less attractive.

The FBI came to heavily enjoy this picture, said to be used for years as a recruiting device to tell the history of the bureau to perspective agents. In the 1949 release of the picture an amended prologue scene was added to the beginning of the picture showing the FBI using the film to prepare recruits with knowledge of the FBI. Commonly this addition would remain in most prints of the film since then.

G Men comes off as an overly do-good, fight-for-right film. Cagney gives an honorable performance in the picture, but above it all the film captures a change in a genre of film that became so popular in the 1930s. We see how the production code has affected the movie industry so fast. This film is a reactionary picture to all the changes in filmmaking code, therefore we can say it is almost a mockery of a film, but it a fine production that serves as a special nugget of a time capsule in a period of American history and cinema where things had started to change, for good or for worse.