Meet William Cagney

Hangin’ out with the family…

James Cagney is a familiar and beloved face in Classic Movie World. His younger brother, William is not quite as familiar, but he still made his mark on film in his own way. William, along with his four brothers and sister Jeannie, moved out to Hollywood together in the early nineteen-thirties and were close all their lives.

William only had five film acting credits to his name, and one of them was the 1934 quickie, Lost In the Stratosphere. It’s kind of a strange film in a lot of ways, but there’s fun to be had.

There’s not much to the movie, to be honest. It’s about Army pilots delivering mail and trying to best each other in the romance department. When the movie opens we see two pilots flying biplanes through a storm, and while it’s a mystery how these pilots navigate with the crude instruments a biplane would have had at the time, they both come through all right.

Lieutenant Tom Cooper (William Cagney) makes it back first. This cocky fellow asks about his buddy, Lieutenant Richard Wood (Edward J. Nugent), who hasn’t made it back yet, and says he thinks Wood is sick because he could hear him coughing, and doesn’t Colonel Worthington (Frank McGlynn Sr.) think Wood needs a couple of days in the hospital? The Colonel is very touched, and with that, Cooper asks if he could have leave to drive into town, as he has some urgent business.

When the ailing Wood finally makes it back, it turns out he isn’t ailing. Cooper probably heard his engines coughing. He’s got business in town, too. The colonel raises an eyebrow or two because he’s got an excellent idea what Wood’s after, and tells Wood he’d better hurry.

Cooper’s business is at a local hof brau, where he’s waiting to pick up a woman he’s nicknamed “Knee-high.” Unfortunately for him. Wood’s got his eye on Knee-high as well, and spirits her away from Cooper via the old “Let me help you start the car,” trick. Meanwhile, poor Gretchen (June Gittelson), the woman Cooper set Wood up with, is waiting on the curb looking for Wood.

That’s how these guys roll. One of them finds a girl and the other finds a way to steal her. Cooper, though, has kind of an advantage, as he’s known for gifting his dates with a certain brand of heart-shaped, perfumed soap called Lotions of Love, which the ladies appreciate. One of them, Sophie (Lona Andre), even uses it to wash her chihuahua.

It’s all in good fun until somehow every woman within a ten mile radius has a bar of Tom’s soap, including the Colonel’s wife. He’s not too pleased about that, but it all blows over when it comes out that Tom didn’t place the order. Who pranked everyone is a total mystery.

Then Wood’s fiancee, Evelyn (June Collyer) comes into town, as she and Wood are supposed to get married as soon as he gets back from San Francisco, and when she gets off the train with her maid, Ida (Hattie McDaniel), she mistakes Cooper for Wood.

It’s not long (try twenty-four hours) before these two fall in love, and Cooper and Wood are suddenly sworn enemies. It’s going to take a dangerous mission in a super-high tech hot air balloon to get them to be friends again. If they ever get back, that is.

Lost In the Stratosphere is just OK. It’s got some funny bits, and William is certainly a winning, charming fellow, but the story is pretty haphazard and there’s such a whirlwind of women that no one really has any kind of personality.

Well, except for Sophie and her chihuahua, but like the rest of the women she doesn’t stay around long.

Plus it’s just badly filmed. These actors must have had a cheap mic on set because they stand so close to each other all the time. It’s hard to act properly when personal space is at a premium. Shaking hands might carry the risk of looking like a right cross.

Not to mention there are bits that could have been filled out but weren’t. Cooper’s soap for instance, is a big missed opportunity, especially the part when every woman’s got a bar of it. Do we ever find out who ordered so many soaps? Uh uh.

I got a huge kick out of the barracks these officers lived in, though. I know they were officer’s quarters and were therefore supposed to be nicer, but the sets look like really fancy apartments and the guys walk between them with no problem. The part where the Colonel finds the soap in the bathroom? He comes out in his living room to meet a whole group of disgruntled officers like it’s no big deal. It feels as if the sets were recycled from a different movie and the filmmakers hoped no one would notice.

Plenty did, though. The movie had the disadvantage of being a Poverty Row movie, plus the reviews were middling. Motion Picture Reviews called Lost In the Stratosphere a “fair family film” of more interest to adolescent boys and suitable for children eight to twelve.

It’s unclear why William switched from acting to production, but the very likely answer is that his older brother’s shadow got too big, not to mention their remarkable resemblance may have been a source of confusion, although William’s personality was a bit more introverted. Maybe production was more to his liking.

Instead, William became James’s business manager and producer, effectively shepherding him through such films as Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Time Of Your Life. The last movie they made together was the 1953 political drama A Lion Is In the Streets. As the cliche goes, blood is thicker than water, and William knew better than anyone how to advocate on his brother’s behalf. Their partnership prospered, even if the films weren’t always successful.

William retired from the movie business in 1965 and switched to real estate investment. He died in Newport Beach on January 3, 1988 of a heart attack at the age of eighty-two.

For more family togetherness, please click here. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope you’re enjoying the blogathon…

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Lost In the Stratosphere is available on DVD and is free to stream for Prime customers.

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