| The Time of Your Life | |
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Original film poster |
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| Directed by | H. C. Potter |
| Produced by | William Cagney |
| Written by | William Saroyan Nathaniel Curtis |
| Starring | James Cagney William Bendix Wayne Morris Jeanne Cagney Broderick Crawford Ward Bond |
| Music by | Carmen Dragon |
| Cinematography | James Wong Howe |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | 1948 |
| Running time | 109 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Time of Your Life is a 1948 film starring James Cagney adapted from the 1939 William Saroyan play of the same title. The movie was adapted by Nathaniel Curtis, directed by H. C. Potter, and featured William Bendix as Nick, Wayne Morris as Tom, Broderick Crawford as Krupp, and Ward Bond as McCarthy. A Cagney Production, The Time of Your Life was produced by Cagney's brother William and co-starred their sister Jeanne as Kitty Duval.
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Mostly filmed on one set, the film takes place in Nick's (William Bendix) Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace in San Francisco where a sign outside tells people to come in as they are.
The film follows the adventures of a group of regulars at Nick's including Joe (James Cagney), a wealthy man who has given up working in order to hold court at the bar and have fun. He also wants to live "a civilized life" where he doesn't have to hurt anyone and believes that the real truth about people is to be found in their dreams of themselves, not the hard facts of their actual existence.[1] Joe has a stooge named Tom (Wayne Morris) who runs his eccentric errands until a woman with a past named Kitty comes in and Tom falls in love with her.
Admirers of the play, the Cagneys acquired the film rights of the play on the condition that the film could not be in release longer than seven years. They allowed the director and cinematographer two weeks to block the film but they changed their minds once filming began, blowing out the budget.[2]
Some believe the drama flopped miserably at the box office but it is remembered as one of the best screen versions of the play. Jackie Gleason played Cagney's role in a critically acclaimed television version for Playhouse 90 ten years later (which also featured James Barton as Kit Carson); the Playhouse 90 production featured Jack Klugman as Nick the bartender, Dick York as Tom, and Betsy Palmer as Kitty Duval.
The Production Code Administration made the producers change Blick's character from a police detective into an informer and a blackmailer.[3]
The film was shot using Saroyan's original ending where Kit shot and killed Blick offstage. 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".
Since preview audiences reacted unfavourably[4], Cagney asked Saroyan to write a more acceptable ending but Saroyan priced his work out of Cagney's reach.[5]A new action packed climax was written and filmed with Cagney beating the daylights out of Blick and Nick throwing him out onto the street.
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