The film is a bit schematic. The three stars are archetypes: Cagney the good boy gone bad, Bogart the bad boy who stays bad, and Lynn the good boy who stays good. Still, it packs quite an emotional wallop--Cagney shows extraordinary range, going from green boy to swaggering gangster to broken man, and Bogart has rarely seemed more purely evil than he does here. He kills for the sheer pleasure of it; it's truly frightening to see. The final scene is a stunning shootout between Cagney and Bogart. With lesser actors this film could be pure hokum. With Cagney and Bogart, it attains catharsis. --Laura Mirsky