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The image is a reverse track of the protagonist chased by an enraged mob, so it goes with the art of knavery. A dance marathon finds the publicist (James Cagney) in his element, losing the prize money to an absconding partner while a well-fed spectator gazes impatiently at the depleted contestants: "Jeez, you gotta wait a long time for somebody to drop dead." (He evades the audience but is tracked down by the winner, "I wore out my feet on your dance floor, now I'm gonna wear out my dukes on your snozzle.") Racket-hopping from coast to coast, he hits paydirt by rebranding useless facial cream as a slimming lotion but his sweetheart (Mary Brian) prefers him broke. The opposite applies to her grasping mother (Ruth Donnelly), who warms up to the potential son-in-law the bigger his pocketbook gets. (The link between her and Rosalind Russell in Gypsy is the closest thing to an auteurist case for Mervyn LeRoy here.) Cagney's motorized pantomime fuels this chiseler's spree, a farcical frenzy on shady showmanship and the "yaps, suckers, chumps" who buy the product or watch the movie. "The public is like a cow bellowing, bellowing to be milked and, if you're smart, you'll get yourself a bucket." The treasure hunt turned pier-dismantling riot, the toothache cured with a clock to the jaw, the grapefruit hustle equipped with a coed-vamp (Claire Dodd). It ends on unapologetic deception that, in this sardonic realm, passes for romantic confession. "Ow, that hurts." "That's love." Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success tries to seize Cagney's Fastest-Talking Grifter title, only for Cagney to reclaim it in One, Two, Three. With Allen Jenkins, Robert McWade, Berton Churchill, Emma Dunn, William H. Strauss, Sterling Holloway, Clay Clement, Gavin Gordon, Douglass Dumbrille, and Louise Mackintosh. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |