THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE was based upon William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play and was brought about, in part, by a collaboration of the Cagney siblings (James, Jeanne, and William). Except for one brief shot of the Salvation Army singing outside the establishment, the entire movie takes place inside Nick's, a saloon, restaurant, and entertainment palace on the waterfront in San Francisco. James Cagney plays Joe, a man who has a lot of cash and spends his time observing, listening, and helping people and fulfilling his every whim. Wayne Morris plays Tom, Joe's gopher man; Jeanne Cagney plays Kitty, a former "burlesque queen" who falls for Tom; and William Bendix plays Nick. The floating characters at Nick's also include, among others, a lovesick young man, an out of work fellow, a drunk, a cowboy who calls himself "Kit Carson", a pinball wizard, a dancer who is a comedian that has no funny jokes, a police officer, and a couple of socialites.
There really isn't much plot in THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. However, neither the movie nor the play it was based upon are about "plot". There may not seem to be a lot going on, but actually there is. The plot of the story is it's characters. Each person that comes into Nick's has a story and some of them we learn, some of them we don't. However, while listening to each person (just as Joe does) we learn something about them and in the process we discover things about ourselves. THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE is art in it's highest form because it entertains, yet also enlightens.
The quality of this DVD isn't all that bad, especially considering how inexpensive it is to purchase a copy (the Laserlight edition can be purchased for less than $5). The sound is good through most of the film except for the occasional scratch and the picture is great (the one scene where you can't read what is on the piece of paper was filmed that way intentionally because you are not supposed to see what's written on the paper because it's too small).
Overall a good movie well worth the time to watch it.
