Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

alexanderdavies-99382 "The Crowd Roars" wouldn't be half as good if it wasn't for James Cagney. He had that knack for being able to carry a film if the plot was a bit ordinary or if the script wasn't up to much. The latter certainly applies to this film as the dialogue is pretty standard. However, Cagney in his energy and his delivery, adds a real zest to the story about a professional racing driver who becomes a bit too protective of his younger brother after he has ambitions to become a driver. When tragedy strikes, Cagney becomes a bit of a drifter who loses his sense of self-worth and his nerve regarding his career. Although Joan Blondell is billed second after James Cagney, she isn't really his leading lady. Their scenes are written so that they are opposites to each other as there is some tension between them. The scenes with the car races are very good and are exciting. Another winner for Cagney!

MartinHafer Jimmy Cagney plays a race car driver who's at the top of his game. When he returns home to visit family, he's shocked to find that his much younger brother has also taken up racing. Despite Jimmy loving his work, he knows it's dangerous and wants better for his kid brother. This sets the stage for a major falling out between them and eventually the young whippersnapper actually surpasses Cagney--leading to a dandy conclusion.This is a very good, though not especially great film by Jimmy Cagney towards the beginning of his career. The acting, writing and direction are competent. However, just seven years later, the studio remade this movie--practically word-for-word in places and even using some of the same auto racing footage!!! Considering that the remake wasn't quite as good, lacked originality and lacked Cagney, I say it's best to stick with the original.By the way, remaking movies--often using pretty much the original script--was a common practice in the 1930s--especially at Warner Brothers. Again and again, films were recycled--sometimes only a couple years later!

bkoganbing The Crowd Roars is probably the earliest sound feature film to be concerned with auto racing. It was probably a nice change of pace for James Cagney to get out on what was the NASCAR circuit of its day and not to be shooting people tied up with another mob.In the one film he made with Cagney, Howard Hawks does a fine job in recreating the auto racing scene of its day. Several names from those ancient days of the sport appear in this film and give it a nice air of authenticity.The problem with The Crowd Roars is that the story itself was very trite and ordinary. Younger brother Eric Linden wants to follow in Cagney's footsteps as a driver. Cagney's not crazy about his choice of female companionship in Joan Blondell. And Cagney's also reassessing his relationship with Ann Dvorak as well.Cagney's life takes an abrupt downhill turn when best friend Frank McHugh is killed. It's not unlike what happens to him in such better known Cagney films as The Roaring Twenties and Come Fill the Cup. Only this is a bit more melodramatic.I also wish there had been a bit more Guy Kibbee as Cagney and Linden's father to inject a note of levity in the proceedings. Away from the racing sequences The Crowd Roars is a rather unexciting melodrama which needed improvement other than cinematography in every department. Auto racing would have to wait for a film like Grand Prix to capture the flavor of it fully. This ain't no Grand Prix.

marcslope James Cagney must have felt darned silly greasing up, donning goggles, climbing into a race car, and making dumb faces while a rear-projection Indy 500 played behind him. He's an ace driver, a daredevil on the track and a cocky alpha male, mistreating his unconditionally supportive girlfriend and attempting to steer his uninteresting younger brother away from a racing career. The script's practically a textbook of genre cliches, from the best buddy whose death-on-wheels gives our hero a guilt complex to the sibling rivalry that is mysteriously resolved, offscreen, in the last reel. Cagney's justifiably celebrated skill and charm can't make us care about this misogynistic, unlikeable blowhard, nor can it make his rapid descent into drink, vagrancy, and hunger (or equally rapid rise back to the Indy) credible. Howard Hawks was already making fast-paced, psychologically sound male-bonding flicks, but even he's flummoxed by the hoary melodramatics of this one. The ladies have little to do but play weepy-loyal (Ann Dvorak) and sarcastic-loyal (Joan Blondell), but they come off best.