Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

James Cagney can play a scumbag like nobody’s business. In Gordon Douglas’s Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Cagney’s Ralph Cotter escapes from prison with a friend, then kills the friend, then brutally beats up the friend’s sister Holiday (Barbara Payton) until she falls in love with him out of desperation: that’s all in the first 20 minutes. Of course, Cotter doesn’t stay faithful to Holiday, nor does he even attempt to live a clean life, instead hooking up with more criminals and corrupt cops, especially venal Inspector Charles Weber (Ward Bond), who ends up in Cotter’s pocket because Cotter possesses the cop’s corruption recorded on tape. Cotter moves from crime to crime, score to score, causing carnage wherever he goes, even secretly marrying Margaret Dobson (Helena Carter), daughter of a wealthy attorney who now works as a “philosophic guide” giving talks about Aristotelian epistemology and spiritual matters. Cagney’s violence here (and in other films) is particularly sadistic because it comes out of nowhere, fists and gun barrels exploding in an instant to knock out his prey; the film was banned in parts of the United States for its brutality. The neglected Holiday exhibits extraordinary patience with Cotter (“I’ll put up with a lot from you, but not another woman”) but even she will reach her limit by the final frames.