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Excellent film, very funny & Cagney was never better. If you're used to seeing him as a gangster, this will change your mind about him.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
A Billy Wilder comedy, set in August 1961 (and made then) As the Berlin wall is finished C. R. McNamara (James Cagney) inflicts his capitalism on all who come near him. His attempts to further his career and help Coca Cola conquer Europe (he's head of Coca Cola Germany). The setting may be the cold war, but this is essentially a farce, and a fine one at that. There's no overall message to the film, no capitalism v communism, it just highlights the absurdities of humanity, that and laughter and love conquer all...... Well probably not, I guess it was written for laughs and that's what it gets. The energy of all the performances, Cagney's especially, is breathtaking. During the making of this, with Wilder's tough direction, Cagney decided to give up acting. His next film was 20 years later (Ragtime). Having made films non stop for over 30 years, he certainly left on a high. A thoroughly enjoyable film.Read full review
THIS MOVIE definitely is and will ever be Wilder's most hilarious though serious + accurate guide to post-war German history...: with its innumerable blessings in disguise perfectly moulded into the dialogues decipherable only from between the lines it helps understand to what extent that country may have set out to improve under the command of the Allied Control Commission (Alliierter Kontrollrat) after WWII, but which never materialized..., meaning: a true democratic society can't be washed ashore just like that, out of the blue (ocean)..., neither injected by victorious 'doctors', i.e. foreign armies or politicians in their incontestably honest effort to establish not only democratic governmental organizations (constitution), but also democratic and humane order like freedom of speech..., nor swallowed with Coca Cola, which however may have been one of the very few strongholds of hope in that respect... - What can be said about the "problem" with German society from today's point of view, 50 years after the movie was released? No doubt that with hindsight Wilder's movie will go down - as if it has not already - in movie history not only as a light-hearted sitcom, but as the truthful reckoning of an eyewitness who lived to see what had become of that country, and a critical documentary of which the 'moment of truth', even though shrouded in irony and laughter, can hardly dispel the vision of foreboding clouds over German society and whatever it is going to develop into, IF it is...Read full review
A good film with an interesting story. Cagney in comedy mood, although not hilariously funny it's good to see him not playing his usual gangster role. I'm sure all fans of James Cagney will enjoy it.
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