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Beginning with "The Public Enemy", produced by Warner Bros in 1931, James Cagney established a new cultural type on the American screen and in the world's imagination. That "type", later developed by Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield, was the urban tough guy - small, wiry, savvy and street-smart. Often presented as a gangster, newspaper reporter or private eye, the "city boy" seemed the quintessential product of urban America, although he was more a model for his audience than a mirror of social actuality. While blending the stories of the professional and political lives of Cagney, Bogart and Garfield into one narrative, Robert Sklar probes the cultural forces that produced this cultural icon and examines its power over masculine self-definition. Cagney and Bogart, whose legends have grown over time, and Garfield, whose work has been unfortunately neglected, are portrayed here in relation not only to their films and their screen personnas but also to their working environment. Sklar gives a real sense of the intensity with which each of them struggled to control his own work in the face of the power of Warner Bros, whose effort to produce socially conscious movies did not prevent it from exploiting its stars. The book also describes the involvement of the three stars with political causes and their response to attacks mounted by powerful right-wing elements against "leftists" in the entertainment industry.

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