SERIOUS SPOILER BELOW, in case you don't want to know the ending.

This was actually pretty darn good, given the preachiness of it: A Life of Crime Is Bad. I think Cagney was a much better actor than people give him credit for, not to mention versatile, doing everything from gangster flicks to westerns to musicals. He's fun to watch and listen to, and uses a whole lot of body language and expression, as well as the tough guy dialogue, to get his character across.

This is basically a story of a bad kid starting off by stealing and (gasp!) DRINKING BEER, becoming a bootlegger, rising in the local crime syndicate until there's a war between his mob and a rival, at the end of which (of course) he is, rather spectacularly, killed.

I had seen the ending before as a clip in some program, so was not surprised. What did surprise me was how enjoyable this movie was, for all its preachiness. Cagney, of course, steals every scene he's in; Jean Harlow is pretty but wooden, although there is a very young and skinny Joan Blondell for eye candy, nice! The scenes are good, the period detail (like a scene that takes place in 1925 with someone playing Scott Joplin on a piano in the background) is excellent, the parental hand wringing is kind of amusing.

A deserved classic, don't miss it.