The Time of Your Life (film)

Last updated
The Time of Your Life
Timeoflifepos.jpg
Original film poster
Directed by H. C. Potter
Written byNathaniel Curtis
Based on The Time of Your Life
1939 play
by William Saroyan
Produced by William Cagney
Starring James Cagney
William Bendix
Wayne Morris
Jeanne Cagney
Cinematography James Wong Howe
Edited by Walter Hannemann
Truman K. Wood
Music by Carmen Dragon
Production
company
William Cagney Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
  • May 26, 1948 (1948-05-26)(New York City)
  • September 3, 1948 (1948-09-03)(United States)
Running time
109 minutes
105 minutes
(Turner library print)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million [1]
Box office$1.5 million [2] [3]

The Time of Your Life is a 1948 American comedy drama film directed by H. C. Potter and starring James Cagney, William Bendix, Wayne Morris and Jeanne Cagney. A Cagney Production, The Time of Your Life was produced by Cagney's brother William and adapted by Nathaniel Curtis from the 1939 William Saroyan play of the same name. Cinematography was by James Wong Howe.

Contents

Plot

The film is set, with a few exceptions, entirely at Nick's 'Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace' in San Francisco, where a sign in the window announces "Come in and be yourself," signed "Nick" (William Bendix). Joe (James Cagney) sits at one of the saloon's tables much of the time, observing people coming and going. He is unemployed but apparently well-off, constantly ordering champagne and giving advice or money to others. (It is implied that he has a knack for choosing winning horses at races.) He desires to live "a civilized life" without hurting anyone and believes the real truth in people is found in their dreams of themselves, not the hard facts of their actual existence. [4]

Joe's best friend and "stooge," Tom (Wayne Morris), believes that he owes his life to Joe and runs peculiar errands for him without any apparent desire to make a life for himself. Other major characters include Kitty Duval (Jeanne Cagney), a supposed burlesque actress whose real name is Katerina Kornovsky. It is implied that she has actually been a prostitute. Tom is innocently infatuated with her, but he only gets the nerve to ask her out and to pursue his courtship with Joe's urging and help. One young man, Willie (Richard Erdmann), is a "marble game [ pinball machine] maniac." Another, Dudley Raoul Bostwick (Jimmy Lydon), keeps trying to get up the nerve to call his girlfriend, Elsie Mandelspiegel (Nanette Parks). At one point, he mistakenly calls a different, older woman (Renie Riano) and asks her to meet him at Nick's but pretends to be someone else when she arrives. Harry (Paul Draper), a "natural-born tap dancing comedian" who cannot make people laugh, is hired by Nick and dances often during the film. A young Black man (Reginald Beane) enters looking for any kind of work and is hired to wash dishes, but when he notices Nick's piano, he shows his talent and is amazed that Nick will hire him simply to play.

Among the other characters who come to Nick's, two of the most significant are Freddie Blick (Tom Powers), who extorts money from Nick and later harasses Kitty, and an older man dressed like a cowboy who refers to himself as "Kit Carson" (James Barton). By the end of the film, Blick's attempt to humiliate and coerce Kitty is foiled by the efforts of Kit Carson, Joe, and Tom; Willie finally wins his game; Dudley and Elsie are reunited; and Joe sends Tom and Kitty off to be married, with Tom now having an independent job as a truck driver. As Joe and Kit sit down to continue telling each other tall tales, Nick takes his sign advising customers to be themselves and rips it up, proclaiming "Enough is enough!"

Cast

James Cagney, Jeanne Cagney and Wayne Morris in The Time of Your Life. The Time Of Your Life (1948) 1.jpg
James Cagney, Jeanne Cagney and Wayne Morris in The Time of Your Life.
James Cagney and James Barton James Cagney-James Barton in The Time of Your Life.jpg
James Cagney and James Barton
Gale Page and James Cagney Gale Page-James Cagney in The Time of Your Life.jpg
Gale Page and James Cagney

Production

The Cagneys admired the play and acquired its film rights on the condition that theirs not be in release longer than seven years. They gave their director and cinematographer two weeks for blocking, but changed their minds once filming began, spending freely and breaking their budget. [5] The film was shot mostly on one set

The film was shot using Saroyan's original ending where Kit shot and killed Blick offstage, whom the Production Code Administration had forced the producers to change from a police detective into an informer and blackmailer. [6] The audience heard the shots and saw Kit walk in relating the event as one of his stories "I shot a man once. In San Francisco. Shot him two times...Fellow named Blick or Glick or something. Couldn't stand the way he talked to ladies".

Preview audiences reacted unfavourably. [7] Cagney asked Saroyan to write a more acceptable ending but Saroyan priced his work out of Cagney's reach. [8] A new action-packed climax was substituted with Joe knocking him unconscious, leading Kit to think he had shot him dead, and Nick later throwing him out onto the street as Kitty and Tom state their intent to get married.

Reception

Box office

The film was a failure at the box office.[ citation needed ]

Remake

A Playhouse 90 television version ten years later starring Jackie Gleason as Joe earned critical acclaim, with Jack Klugman as Nick, Dick York as Tom, Betsy Palmer as Kitty, and James Barton reprising his role as Kit Carson.

Related Research Articles

<i>Destry Rides Again</i> 1939 film

Destry Rides Again is a 1939 American Western comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart. The supporting cast includes Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, Brian Donlevy, Allen Jenkins, Irene Hervey, Billy Gilbert, Bill Cody Jr., Lillian Yarbo, and Una Merkel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Cagney</span> American actor and dancer (1899–1986)

James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, he was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Saroyan</span> American writer

William Saroyan was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy. When the studio rejected his original 240-page treatment, he turned it into a novel, The Human Comedy. Saroyan is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

<i>The Public Enemy</i> 1931 film

The Public Enemy is a 1931 American pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman and stars James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Donald Cook and Joan Blondell. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in Prohibition-era urban America. The supporting players include Beryl Mercer, Murray Kinnell, and Mae Clarke. The screenplay is based on an unpublished novel—Beer and Blood by two former newspapermen, John Bright and Kubec Glasmon—who had witnessed some of Al Capone's murderous gang rivalries in Chicago. In 1998, The Public Enemy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

<i>Yankee Doodle Dandy</i> 1942 film by Michael Curtiz

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp, Jeanne Cagney, and Vera Lewis. Joan Leslie's singing voice was partially dubbed by Sally Sweetland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bendix</span> American actor (1906–1964)

William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters. He is best remembered for his role in Wake Island, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in both the radio and television versions of The Life of Riley, and baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story. Bendix was a frequent co-star of Alan Ladd, the two appearing in ten films together; both actors coincidentally died in 1964.

<i>The Time of Your Life</i> Play by William Saroyan

The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened on Broadway in 1939.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Carson</span> Canadian-American actor (1910–1963)

John Elmer Carson, known as Jack Carson, was a Canadian-born American film actor. Carson often played the role of comedic friend in films of the 1940s and 1950s, including The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) with Cary Grant. He appeared in such dramas as Mildred Pierce (1945), A Star is Born (1954), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). He worked for RKO and MGM, but most of his notable work was for Warner Bros.

Shake Hands with the Devil is a 1959 film produced and directed by Michael Anderson and starring James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns and Michael Redgrave. The picture was filmed in Dublin, and at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland. The picture was based on the 1933 novel of the same title by Rearden Conner, the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary policeman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Morgan</span> American actor (1908–1994)

Dennis Morgan was an American actor-singer. He used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting the name under which he gained his greatest fame.

<i>The Strawberry Blonde</i> 1941 American romantic comedy film by Raoul Walsh

The Strawberry Blonde is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, and featuring Rita Hayworth, Alan Hale, Jack Carson, and George Tobias. Set in New York City around 1900, it features songs of that era such as "The Band Played On", "Bill Bailey", "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie", "Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie", and "Love Me and the World Is Mine". It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. The title is most often listed beginning with the word The, but the film's posters and promotional materials called it simply Strawberry Blonde.

Time of Your Life may refer to:

<i>White Heat</i> 1949 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh

White Heat is a 1949 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O'Brien.

The Time of Your Life (<i>Playhouse 90</i>) 3rd episode of the 3rd season of Playhouse 90

"The Time of Your Life" is a 1958 live television version of William Saroyan's play starring Jackie Gleason, directed by Tom Donovan, and adapted by A. J. Russell. The telecast was shown on October 9, 1958 and was the third episode of the third season of the anthology series Playhouse 90. The supporting cast features Jack Klugman, Dick York, Betsy Palmer, Bert Freed, Gloria Vanderbilt and Dina Merrill.

<i>Johnny Come Lately</i> 1943 film by William K. Howard

Johnny Come Lately is a 1943 drama film directed by William K. Howard starring James Cagney, Grace George, Marjorie Main and Hattie McDaniel. It was the first film produced by Cagney's brother, William Cagney.

<i>Day-Time Wife</i> 1939 film by Gregory Ratoff

Day-Time Wife is a 1939 screwball comedy directed by Gregory Ratoff, starring Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. Darnell and Power play Jane and Ken Norton, a married couple approaching their second anniversary. This was Linda Darnell's second film. Day-Time Wife was the first of four films that Darnell and Power made together over the next few years, the others being Brigham Young (1940), The Mark of Zorro (1940), and Blood and Sand (1941).

<i>Kit Carson</i> (1940 film) 1940 American film

Kit Carson is a 1940 Western film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Jon Hall as Kit Carson, Lynn Bari as Delores Murphy, and Dana Andrews as Captain John C. Frémont. This picture was filmed on location at Cayente (Kayenta), Arizona and was one of the early films to use Monument Valley as a backdrop. The supporting cast features Ward Bond as a character named "Ape", future Lone Ranger Clayton Moore without his mask, and Raymond Hatton as Jim Bridger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renie Riano</span> American actress

Renie Isabel Riano was an English-born American actress who, with the exception of the Jiggs and Maggie comedies, had minor roles in 1940s and 1950s films. She was sometimes credited as Reine Riano, Renee Riano, or Rene Riano.

<i>All Women Have Secrets</i> 1939 film by Kurt Neumann

All Women Have Secrets is a 1939 American comedy film directed by Kurt Neumann and written by Agnes Christine Johnston. The film stars Virginia Dale, Joseph Allen, Jeanne Cagney, Peter Lind Hayes, Betty Moran and John Arledge. Also appearing briefly in one of her first screen roles is Veronica Lake, billed as Constance Keane.

Two Gun Man is a 1931 American Pre-Code Western film directed by Phil Rosen and starring Ken Maynard, Lucille Powers, and Charles King. It was released on May 15, 1931, by Tiffany Productions and was later re=released by Amity Pictures.

References

  1. THOMAS F. BRADY (Feb 1, 1948). "HOLLYWOOD DEALS: Prospects Brighten for United Artists -Budget Runs Wild and Other Matters". New York Times. p. X5.
  2. Balio, Tino (2009). United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   978-0-299-23004-3. p217
  3. "Top Grossers of 1948", Variety 5 January 1949 p 46
  4. LIFE. Time Inc. 14 June 1948. p. 51. ISSN   0024-3019 . Retrieved 2015-08-21.
  5. p.145 Schickle, Richard James Cagney 1985 Applause Books
  6. p.1045 American Film Institute With Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Films 1911–1960 1997 University of California Press
  7. Hal Erickson (2012). "The-Time-of-Your-Life – Trailer – Cast – Showtimes – NYTimes.com". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on 2012-10-20. Retrieved 2015-08-21.
  8. pp. 141-142 Lee, Lawrence & Gifford, Barry Saroyan: A Biography University of California Press