The American gangster film, and the output of Warner Bros. in its most influential decade, would be unimaginable without the contributions of James Cagney. One of talking pictures' first generation of actors, Cagney forever romanticized the figures of the criminal and the con artist with his jittery physical dynamism and breakneck staccato vocal patterns.Raised in New York City's tough Yorkville neighborhood, Cagney was a veteran of settlement house revues, vaudeville and five years of Broadway when he came to Warner Bros. in 1930. Cagney, Bette Davis and Edward G. Robinson, all signed to
