The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties follows three American soldiers who meet while serving in France during the First World War and return home to face a country where jobs are scarce. Their paths diverge: Lloyd Hart resumes his law career, George Hally moves into bootlegging, and Eddie Bartlett, unable to find steady work, becomes a taxi driver. Before long Eddie is using his cabs to move illegal liquor, building a fleet and hiring Lloyd as his lawyer while George comes in as a partner. The rackets bring them wealth and power, but ambition, romance and rivalry gradually turn former comrades against one another.

Raoul Walsh directed this Warner Bros. crime drama, produced by Hal B. Wallis and Samuel Bischoff from a screenplay by Robert Rossen, Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay. James Cagney leads as Eddie Bartlett, with Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George, Jeffrey Lynn and Frank McHugh in support. Walsh made the film early in his directing career, second in the chronological order of the twenty-three titles listed for him. It runs 104 minutes.

On IMDb the film holds a critics' rating of 7.7 out of 10 from 18 reviews, while on TMDB audience voters give it 7.5 out of 10 from 275 votes, so critical and general response are closely aligned. The large credited cast reflects the scale of the production.