COME FILL THE CUP

US, 1951, 113 minutes, Black and white.
James Cagney, Gig Young, Raymond Massey, Phyllis Thaxter, James Gleason, Selena Royle, Larry Keating.
Directed by Gordon Douglas.

Come Fill the Cup is about alcoholism. It is a James Cagney vehicle from the early '50s. He is quite persuasive as the newspaper reporter alcoholic who reforms and is able then to help others. Gig Young received an Oscar nomination for his role as the alcoholic ne'er do well. The supporting cast includes Phyllis Thaxter, Raymond Massey and James Gleason as Cagney's buddy. The film is quite grim in its presentation of alcoholism and interpersonal reactions. Direction is by Gordon Douglas who went on to make a number of action films and westerns.

1. The impact of this drama? Serious themes? Melodrama? The newspaper world? The world of the alcoholic?

2. Warner Bros. production values: black and white photography, the city? Editing and pace? The atmosphere of the alcoholic and his world? Musical score?

3. James Cagney and his screen presence: tough and vulnerable, workaholic, loner, failing in his relationships and work? On Skid Row? His being rehabilitated - and the strong and tender Cagney emerging?

4. The situation: work, pressures, drinking, failure? Relationships? On Skid Row? The friendship that helped him get on his way again? On the way - and change? Begging jobs? Starting again, humility? Chances, success? The passing of the years and achievement? The temptation to fall again and the pressures?

5. Phyllis Thaxter as heroine: at work, love, marrying, the drinking problem, support, the dangers in the final violent confrontation?

6. Gig Young's performance and the Oscar nomination: marrying, gangsters, drinking, the encounter with Cagney and his reform, the accident and shame, the sequence of his alcoholic 'horrors'? The gangsters and the confrontation?

7. The owner of the paper, his attitudes towards Cagney, giving him chances, concern, presumption? The paper and its success? His nephew and his wanting him to reform?

8. James Gleason as Cagney's friend, support, help, the pathos of his death?

9. Themes of alcohol and its necessity, abuse, effect? The reformed alcoholic? The temptation day by day? Cagney's speeches about it? The possibility of giving up? The younger man and his fits, the horrors of alcoholism?

10. An effective drama about newspapers, exposes, gangsters -pressures within the running of a paper? An effective moralising drama about alcohol?