City For Conquest (1940)

Dir.: Anatole Litvak
Plot: An ex-boxer returns to the ring to support his younger brother and impress his ambitious fiancee, with tragic consequences.

 James Cagney didn’t get too much credit as a serious dramatic actor before his Oscar-winning turn as George M. Cohan in 1942. City For Conquest is therefore a rather rare opportunity to see a pre-Yankee Doodle Dandy Cagney giving it his all in a heady, romantic melodrama which demands very little of the bantam histrionics which had defined him for much of the 1930s. An uneven, sudsy affair kept afloat by several strong, affecting performances, it is possibly most notable for its proto-Manhattan use of New York as a romantic metaphor.

 That said, the plot is hokum even by 1940s standards. In fact, what it most resembles is a short story from a Victorian women’s magazine. Danny and Peggy are childhood sweethearts who grew up together in the slums of New York. Danny, a truck driver and part-time boxer, wants nothing more than to marry and settle down; but Peggy, an aspiring dancer, thinks the pair of them should pursue careers first, rather than settling for the life of scrimping and squalor their own families endured. She takes off with her sleazy dancing partner (Anthony Quinn) and Danny duly embarks on a boxing career that sees him reach the championship, only to be blinded by an underhanded trick from his opponent. Peggy, now a well-known dancer on the circuit, realises the folly of her ambitions (Sigh. A few words more on this later.), and rushes to track down the man she left behind.

 Schmaltz factor aside, there is no faulting the performances here. Cagney is, as always, riveting here at his most vulnerable - good-natured, self-sacrificing Danny is about as far away from his gangster roles as you can get. When it comes to conveying reams of emotion simply with an expression or gesture, he really is peerless. Sheridan keeps pace despite having a rather ambiguously-written part as the girl who breaks his heart but never quite lets go of him. Memorable support comes in the shape of Frank McHugh as Danny’s trainer, a jittery Elia Kazan as a childhood pal gone astray and Arthur Kennedy, in his first screen appearance, as Danny’s beloved kid brother, a talented but struggling composer. In addition to this, Anatole Litvak’s direction (with some uncredited input from Jean Negulesco) is handsome and assured. Amongst the standout sequences is a long, unflinching fight scene which is probably the most brutal seen on screen until Raging Bull set a new standard for tooth-popping, spit-spraying cinematic bouts.

 One of the less appealing consequences of the central plot arc is a rather nasty attitude towards Peggy. The tone is very much one of sad and disgusted surprise that a woman who has a nice man offer to marry her could possibly want anything more. Her desire for fame, fortune and a life outside the slums is treated as misguided at best and at worst outrageously selfish. Near the film’s conclusion, one of the characters outright accuses her of causing Danny’s blindness, pushing her into the penitent crying jag necessary to redeem her in time for a big romantic ending. This means it’s hard to know what to make of an early scene which pretty explicitly implies that Peggy is raped by Quinn’s character. She remains partnered with him and the incident is never mentioned afterwards - are we supposed to see it as an unprovoked assault and sympathise with her, or as some sort of commentary on what happens to girls who stray outside of their preordained spheres? Hopefully not the latter (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) but the brevity of the subplot makes it impossible to read accurately.

 Earlier I mentioned a similarity to Manhattan (1979) in the film’s treatment of New York. Just to expand briefly on that premise, for me the resemblance is two-fold. The first is aesthetic - both movies are set in Manhattan and both make New York look fantastic. One particular moment, a key conversation between Danny and Peggy, takes place against an almost hypnotically-beautiful backdrop of lights along the river which irresistibly calls to mind both Manhattan’s celebrated bench scene and Allen and Keaton's walk by the bridge in Annie Hall.

You see what I mean?

 The second similarity is philosophical. In both films, New York is more than a location, more than a neat backdrop - it represents something about the people who live there. It’s a place where dreams are made and broken, where the stakes which drive everyday existence are just that little bit higher than anywhere else. The metaphor is made explicit by Danny’s brother’s composition, which he calls a “symphony of New York, the song of the magic isle, a city for conquest - with all of its proud beauty and sordid ugliness”. Both films are locked into a love-hate relationship with the city, fascinated by its energy and unique character but acutely sensitive to the inevitable pain which accompanies thousands of young people staking everything on their dreams. 

 “Everybody in New York wants to do something, be somebody, except you,” a confused Peggy tells Danny, who tellingly replies “I just want to be happy.” To me, that’s a really terrific exchange because it summarises the central conflict so neatly. Sure, City For Conquest is unabashedly soapy melodrama, and the moral of the story is heavy-handed and faintly repugnant in its treatment of female ambition. And yet it’s also a great chance to see Cagney excel in an unusual kind of role, surrounded by other fine talents, in a splendidly luminous parable of New York City.

7.5/10