The Roaring Twenties · reception & legacy
1939 · Raoul Walsh
How The Roaring Twenties has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
In 1939 it landed as a solid hit but felt like a nostalgic capstone to a gangster cycle already going out of style; today it's ranked among the greatest of all gangster pictures, with a Criterion release in 2021 sealing the reappraisal.
What's debated
The perennial fan debate: is this or Angels with Dirty Faces the peak Cagney gangster film — and is Bogart criminally underused in it?
Its footprint
Panama's final line — 'He used to be a big shot' — is one of the most quoted closers in movie history, and Cagney's staggering death sprawl on the church steps is an endlessly referenced image that Scorsese, a vocal champion of the film, has cited among his favorite endings.
Where it stands
A canon climber: long treated as 'just' the last great Warner Bros. gangster picture, now a you-must-see-this staple of the genre's Letterboxd canon.