Snodgrass Photography Blog

While Cagney and O'Brien share billing in this, the sixth of their nine pictures together, Angels really is Cagney's film. His anti-hero is a richer role, and with that trademark kinetic energy, Cagney practically jumps off the screen.

Director Michael Curtiz a Master Filmmaker

Angels traces the lifelong bromance of Cagney, as hood Rocky Sullivan, and his chum Jerry Connolly (O'Brien), who becomes a streetwise yet idealistic priest.

The first shot instantly reveals why director Michael Curtiz was such a master filmmaker. His fluid camera begins on a medium-close shot of a pair of hands clutching a newspaper headlined, "Harding Nominated for President." This is followed by a nearly 180-degree pan across a busy New York tenement street scene. This purely visual exposition effortlessly establishes the film's era and milieu.

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