After years as a James Cagney fan, I finally saw Taxi on TCM. I liked it, but my viewing experienced was influenced by how our culture has finally learned, during the seventy years since this movie was made, to challenge, not accept, physical and verbal abuse between men and women.
So, although James Cagney was as bracing as ever, Loretta Young sympathetic and beautiful and the evocation of the street life of New York City of the early Depression Years quite energizing, it was difficult to watch Cagney's treatment of Young, which didn't differ at all from his treatment of everyone. In fact, his inability to control his temper was the true theme of the film, ostensibly about a turf war between cab companies. It started with his verbal taunts of violence toward Young the morning after a cabbie meeting, at which Young preached love, not war, to the outrage of Cagney. This arguement ended with Young slapping Cagney. Next, inexplicably, they are shown well into a dating relationship that alternates between treacly sweetness, and, on a dime, all-out displays of his temper. Entertaining scenes of double-dating with their sidekicks at the hot spots of the time follow, culminating at a dance contest. (The relationship between their friends is not much better. She orders him around; he minimizes and discounts her desirability to him.) Cagney is shown pushing his love interest away, completely out of the frame, as he embarks on a fist fight with the male half of the couple who won the dance contest.
It comes as no surprise that, after their marriage, Cagney slaps Young on the face when he discovers she tried to buy peace by lending money to the girlfriend of the man who killed his brother (so he can get out of town so Cagney can't kill him and make her a wife of a murderer!). Although Young speaks out against his mistreatment of other people, she never reacts after his mistreatment of her. In between violent outbursts, they sweetly and sentimentally embrace. Even so, at the end, when she is preparing to leave him, he enters the apartment expecting her to enthusiastically take him back. She embarasses him by hesitating for quite a while before doing so.
Of course, Cagney's charisma is such that you can't take your eyes off him. You get the impression that Warner's had to invent cinematic techniques just to keep up with him. But the script's implicit acceptance of his character's entitlement to violence toward his wife was unsettling to me.
So, although James Cagney was as bracing as ever, Loretta Young sympathetic and beautiful and the evocation of the street life of New York City of the early Depression Years quite energizing, it was difficult to watch Cagney's treatment of Young, which didn't differ at all from his treatment of everyone. In fact, his inability to control his temper was the true theme of the film, ostensibly about a turf war between cab companies. It started with his verbal taunts of violence toward Young the morning after a cabbie meeting, at which Young preached love, not war, to the outrage of Cagney. This arguement ended with Young slapping Cagney. Next, inexplicably, they are shown well into a dating relationship that alternates between treacly sweetness, and, on a dime, all-out displays of his temper. Entertaining scenes of double-dating with their sidekicks at the hot spots of the time follow, culminating at a dance contest. (The relationship between their friends is not much better. She orders him around; he minimizes and discounts her desirability to him.) Cagney is shown pushing his love interest away, completely out of the frame, as he embarks on a fist fight with the male half of the couple who won the dance contest.
It comes as no surprise that, after their marriage, Cagney slaps Young on the face when he discovers she tried to buy peace by lending money to the girlfriend of the man who killed his brother (so he can get out of town so Cagney can't kill him and make her a wife of a murderer!). Although Young speaks out against his mistreatment of other people, she never reacts after his mistreatment of her. In between violent outbursts, they sweetly and sentimentally embrace. Even so, at the end, when she is preparing to leave him, he enters the apartment expecting her to enthusiastically take him back. She embarasses him by hesitating for quite a while before doing so.
Of course, Cagney's charisma is such that you can't take your eyes off him. You get the impression that Warner's had to invent cinematic techniques just to keep up with him. But the script's implicit acceptance of his character's entitlement to violence toward his wife was unsettling to me.