Short Cut to Hell

This is the only film directed by James Cagney.

In Short Cut to Hell, Robert Ivers plays a hit man paid off with counterfeit money, bringing police to his door. He hops a train to Los Angeles and winds up kidnapping a young woman (Georgian Johnson) who is the girlfriend of a detective (William Bishop).

Very routine and I struggled to stay involved.

Growing up I loved the TV series It's a Great Life which starred Bishop. I suppose if I saw it now I would find it silly, who knows. Sadly he died young.

I had never seen Georgann Johnson as a young and pretty actress. She was a wonderfully talented character actress.

Robert Ivers ,mainly in the first part ,gives an impressive performance:impassive ,deadpan,cold as ice ,he will make you shiver with his robotic swagger.When he kills the secretary after her boss,the directing(and performance) seems years ahead of its time.Ditto for the scene in the restaurant where his "client" is savoring mint chocolates or later in the train where he meets the chanteuse.

The problem lies in this singer's character:the courageous young girl,who feels for the unfortunate killer who's got a raw deal,whose drunkard of a father treated him so bad he could be nothing but an outlaw etc etc etc.After an offbeat and intriguing first part,the movie turns predictable and the "moving" ending is business as usual.

Towards the end of Short Cut to Hell, with the two principal characters holed up in an abandoned underground storage bunker and the police cars massed outside, there's a long quotation from the doom-freighted score Miklos Rosza wrote for Double Indemnity. It's one of several arresting details the movie provides (another is a newspaper from the previous decade, with the headline 'Allies Cross Siegfried Line'), details that pique interest but go nowhere in attempting to satisfy curiosity.

Short Cut to Hell is an all but forgotten movie but a noteworthy one nonetheless, if only as the only title James Cagney ever directed. Night of the Hunter it's not (the sole directorial effort of Charles Laughton), but another point of engagement is in its being a remake of the 1942 Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake vehicle This Gun for Hire, drawn from the Graham Greene 'entertainment' of that name.

The Ladd/Lake allure didn't last into a new millennium (who knew?), but in 1957 both of them were still reasonably active, their less than glamorous (all right, alcoholic) endgames still a few years, or decades, off. Cagney chose to update them using actors without much in the way of either past or future.

In the Ladd role of the icy, isolated killer-for-hire, Robert Ivers is little more than a trenchcoat and a topper, skin and bones, who brings to mind an unlikely amalgam of Elisha Cook Jr. and James Dean. Finding himself set up through marked bills, after carrying out the two brutal murders contracted by pompous 'fatso' (Jacques Aubuchon, whose indulgences are pretty young things and peppermint patties), he eludes police, taking as hostage Georgann Johnson, a lounge singer engaged to police detective William Bishop.

Johnson proves a game gal, but in the wrong way. She has a way with a wisecrack, but it's not in the flirtatious Veronica Lake way (nor that of Lauren Bacall or Gloria Grahame); the spin she gives is more in the Eve Arden-ish, vinegar-virgin mode, less seductive than matey, even matronly. So the chemistry between captor and captive (our old friend The Stockholm Syndrome) rarely reaches reactive force. (Nor, for that matter, do the reactions between Johnson and Bishop.)

Notwithstanding its unknown cast, Short Cut to Hell doesn't have the look or feel of a B-movie, and Cagney keeps a good pace and an acceptable amount of tension (a few quite brutal scenes help to quicken the pulse as well). It's not quite clear why Cagney chose this material to direct, and he makes (or had to accept) some less than ideal choices, but he'd worked in movies long enough to insure that the movie he directed was brisk and absorbing, a better little movie than its obscurity might suggest.

This is the only film James Cagney directed, and for a first-time effort, this remake of THIS GUN FOR HIRE is not too shabby. Cagney supposedly made the film as a favor to producer A.C. Lyles, and he did not really intend to pursue a career as a director. While it may not be up to the original, the film still has a good deal of Cagney-esque energy, and enough suspense to sustain viewer interest.

Actress Georgann Johnson is cast in the Veronica Lake role, and she applies a serious amount of realism. At one point, she has to walk down the aisle of a train, and she does it very subtly as if her equilibrium is off-balance, which if you think about it, it should be. How come other actors do not walk realistically on trains, planes and other fast-moving transportation in movies? Maybe they should consult Miss Johnson for pointers.

An icy hit-man seeks revenge after being double-crossed by his employer.

Catch those early scenes with an over-heated Vickers (Daisy). I don't know what director Cagney told her, but she does everything except kiss the camera. Given the generally slack results, I can see why Cagney never again directed. The movie itself is spotty, at best, with an erratic script and uneven acting. Johnson (Glory) and Aubuchon (Barhwell) are fine; however, lead actor Ivers (Kyle) lacks the gravitas to carry off the merciless hit-man. He looks a little like Cagney, but is a long way from the latter's compelling charisma. (Note how the physically slight Ivers wears a bulky trenchcoat in most scenes.) Of the two leads, it's really Georgann Johnson who has the strong presence. Note too, the subtle hints that Bahrwell might well be gay, rather daring innuendo for the time.

Cagney's pretty good at staging. The industrial plant scenes are both eye-catchers and ominously suggestive. And I'm wondering whose lavish Hollywood estate was used for the finale. Speaking of the estate, the showdown is a lot tamer than I expected, given Bahrwell's slimy character. And shouldn't overlook the two execution scenes that are quite graphic, for the time. However, there are also two contrived implausibles—Glory donning Kyle's decoy outfit even though she's certain to get shot; plus, thug Nichols' (Vye) recovering quickly with hardly a mark after a savage beating. Neither is well thought out.

Not surprisingly, Johnson went on to a very respectable TV career, while it looks like Ivers never again had a lead role. Fortunately, Cagney went back to what he did best—acting. All in all, the movie fails to have any lasting impact despite the strong premise. It's definitely not the best version of novelist Greene's This Gun For Hire.