Great Guy (1936)
Ex-boxer Johnny Cave takes over as chief deputy of New York's Bureau of Weights and Measures after his predecessor is nearly killed, and immediately starts cracking down on merchants rigging their scales to cheat customers. When his investigation traces the corruption to his own fiancée's employer and the crooked politicians protecting him, Cave has to choose between looking away and risking everything to expose it.
Made for the small, financially shaky Grand National Pictures rather than his usual Warner Bros., Great Guy let James Cagney rework his tough-guy persona as a two-fisted civil servant, a lower-stakes crusading-hero picture that arrived during his real-life contract dispute with the studio.
Background
Great Guy was directed by John G. Blystone and released in 1936 by Grand National Pictures, a small independent studio. James Cagney stars as Johnny Cave, a former boxer who becomes chief deputy of New York’s Bureau of Weights and Measures. Mae Clarke and Edward Brophy are in the cast. The film was made during Cagney’s contract dispute with Warner Bros., and it let him play a civil servant rather than the gangsters he was best known for. Blystone was an experienced studio director, and the film gave him a civic story set in the everyday working life of a city bureau.
What to watch for
The film is a crusading-hero story, with Cagney’s Johnny Cave cracking down on merchants who rig their scales. Watch the investigations, which move from small shopkeepers up to the crooked politicians protecting them. The emotional stakes come from Johnny’s engagement and his choice between looking away and exposing the corruption. Cagney’s energetic performance brings the tough-guy style of his Warner films into a civil-service setting. The film is short and direct, and its modest production shows in its simple sets and quick pace. Watch the inspectors at their daily work, which gives the film a rare municipal setting for a Cagney picture.
