City for Conquest (1940)
Great credentials here, from director Anatole Litvak to photographers (two of them) James Wong Howe and Sol Polito. That's enough for any movie. And music by Max Steiner, and throw in James Cagney, and you get a sense of the rich tapestry of New York that gets better and better as it goes, with even a small (sensational) part by Elia Kazan and Arthur Kennedy's first role.
Now it's a little stretch to see Cagney as a fighter--he's fit about as much as I am, and has no boxer's physique. But the movie is a hair lightweight in a heartwarming way (this is no Raging Bull, nor even James Garfield, later in the 1940s). But it creates a great milieux, just as the war is going in Europe and the Depression is ending in New York. The streets are abuzz, and love is in the air. There are a lot of 1930s era effects that are quaint--the fast montages of the city, or of dancers--and the plot itself, of a couple destined for each other but buffeted by life's usual distractions, is sweet.
And it all unfolds with such well-oiled perfection, the same era as Kane and Casablanca, and the same studio system and film stock. Great stuff, well made, and overcoming whatever conventional sentiments that thread through it all. It's even enjoyable without the plot, the boatride at night (think Weegee), the street scenes with kids everywhere (think Helen Levitt). It's a surprisingly honest, vivid movie.
