Watch Taxi! For Free

Let's be realistic.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

That's the question this 70 minute little movie asks in reference to hot-head independent cab driver Matt Nolan (James Cagney) and waitress Sue Riley (Loretta Young). The two are brought together after Sue's dad, Pop Riley (Guy Kibbee), has his cab deliberately smashed by a truck driver due to a war between the independent cab drivers such as Pop and Consolidated Cab. Pop grabs a gun and shoots the smirking truck driver dead in the back.Pop dies in prison and Sue becomes a pacifist, urging the other cab drivers to shun violence. Matt wants the cab drivers to take the fight to the Consolidated Cab company. Matt and Sue are attracted to each other despite their differences and marry. Matt promises to change and keep a lid on his hot head. But then a drunken member of Consolidated Cab's muscle men, Buck Gerard, kills Matt's brother and Matt wants to kill the guy himself before the cops can find him - anything the police can dish out is too good for his brother's murderer, he figures. But then Matt would be a murderer too and Sue will do anything to prevent having a second loved one sent to prison. How does this all work out? Watch and find out. Sure, Matt is in the wrong here, but Sue takes some questionable actions herself begging the question - why doesn't she just call the police and TELL THEM where Gerard is, once she knows? Warner Brothers keeps this rather routine plot interesting with a good solid cast. Besides leads Cagney and Young you have George E. Stone as Matt's cab driving friend and constantly gabbing Leila Bennett as Sue's friend Ruby, which make for very colorful double dates. Then there is David Landau who looks as mean as he acts here as Buck Gerard, the drunken muscle that kills Matt's brother. Dorothy Burgess is Marie, Buck's girl. She's an attractive well-spoken girl and you can't help but wonder what she sees in such an abusive slob who is bound to turn his violent personality on her from time to time.Some strange coincidences of film history make this one worth watching closely. Notice who James Cagney's character loses the dance contest to in the opening half hour or so - George Raft, famous for his Charleston, as an uncredited extra! During that dance contest a small part of "Yankee Doodle" plays, 10 years before Cagney plays the song's author, George M. Cohan.Also, when Sue and Matt are double dating with Skeets and Leila they are going to the movies. The camera shows they are going to watch "Her Hour of Love" starring Donald Cook and Evelyn Knapp, both Warner Brothers stars of the day. They even show a rather stilted love scene from the movie once inside the theater. Problem is, that film never existed! I wonder why Warner Bros. just didn't show a clip from a real film they were trying to promote at the time rather than going to all of this trouble? It would have been cheaper, and, after all, the word "cheap" was music to Jack Warner's ears.

Taxi (1932) *** (out of 4) Silly but extremely entertaining crime film from Warner deals with two rival cab companies who resort to violence to settle business. James Cagney leads one side of the fight while slowly falling for the girl (Loretta Young) who lost her father in the taxi wars. This is certainly a silly film but if you enjoy watching Cagney kick ass then this is highly entertaining. The film opens with Cagney knocking around a few guys and continues throughout the film, which runs a very fast 68-minutes and doesn't have one dry moment the whole way through. One of the men Cagney beats is played by a young George Raft who smarts off after a dance contest. Cagney is as fast and as wild as he has ever been and his performance is top-notch. Young is also very good in her role as his wife as she must try and talk Cagney out of seeking vengeance on the man who killed his brother. The screenplay is rather smart even though most of its just there for the action but this is the perfect time killer and great fun for fans of the two stars. George E. Stone, Guy Kibbee and Leila Bennett co-star.

Roy Del Ruth's early movies are roller-coasters of nonstop excitement. He seemed to lose a lot of his style and passion once the Code was issued. His pre-Code movies, though, seem very modern: They're funny, naughty, touching, and shocking -- sometimes all at once."Taxi" is one of his best. It's also one of my favorite James Cagney movies. In this, he weeps when he learns that a family member has died. It's a full-frontal shot and very daring. How many leading men of his era would dared this? In the same movie, he slugs his girlfriend Loretta Young (always very appealing here.) He's funny, believable, and violent.I like Guy Kibbee in the sort of sympathetic role he plays here. He is Young's father. Leila Bennett is an unlikely movie presence. She's gawky and goofy. But as Young's roommate, she's fun and adds to the general excellence of "Taxi."

TAXI (Warner Brothers, 1932), directed by Roy Del Ruth, is not so much a tribute on the day in the life of taxi drivers and the involvement with their passengers, but solely on an individual cabbie out to avenge his brother's killer. While the story does start out with a taxi war, Gramercy vs. Consolidated Cabs, it shifts gears during its second half where the theme switches from "fare game" to "revenge is sweet." The cabbie in question is James Cagney, resident tough guy of Warners, still in the driver's seat after his triumph in THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). He's not a gangster this time around but a guy on the side of the law, his law in fact, coping with hostility from others which cause his temper to constantly reach its boiling point. Loretta Young, very early in her career, plays the girl he marries who tries every which way to break him out of his quick-temper habit.TAXI immediately gets underway as Buck Gerard (David Landau) an organizer who leads his men to create "accidents" for other taxi drivers in order to do away with his competition. He orders "Pop" Reilly (Guy Kibbee) to leave his corner, but when he refuses, has his hired truck driver (Nat Pendleton) smash into his taxi. Reilly shoots the driver, but because he took the law into his own hands, the old man is sentenced to serve ten years in the state penitentiary in Ossining. After Reilly dies, Sue (Loretta Young), his daughter, goes against Matt Nolan (James Cagney), a taxi driver forming a staff meeting in getting the other drivers to unite by fighting back. In spite of their differences, Matt and Sue eventually marry. While in a night club celebrating their union, the Nolans encounter the drunken Buck Gerard with his girlfriend, Marie Costa (Dorothy Burgess). After Buck speaks out of turn, sort to speak, by insulting Sue, a fight ensues causing Gerard to take out his knife aimed at Matt, but accidentally stabbing his brother, Danny (Ray Cooke), in his attempt to save Matt. While Sue feels it best for the police to handle the situation, Matt wants nothing more than to avenge Danny's killer. Their marriage nearly comes at wits end when Matt learns Skeets (George E. Stone), one of his taxi driver pals, that Gerard's girl was seen visiting Sue in his apartment, asking her for $100, leading Matt to believe Sue has betrayed him, unaware of her true reason in doing this.A forgotten 67 minute programmer with fast-pace action is notable mostly for a couple of memorable scenes: Cagney speaking Yiddish to a policeman, and a dance contest at the Rainbow Gardens involving Cagney and Young with another dancing couple, the male partner being the up and coming George Raft. With this being a Cagney picture, it is Leila Bennett as Young's best girlfriend who not only stands out with her comedy relief and witty dialog, but gets the final fadeout. Look fast for Donald Cook (Cagney's brother in THE PUBLIC ENEMY) and Evalyn Knapp in the movie theater sequence playing leading players of "Her Hour of Love." As with many movies of the early 1930s, TAXI has gone through the remaking process by the end of the decade under the new title and locale as WATERFRONT (WB, 1939) with Gloria Dickson and Dennis Morgan, both films that have never been distributed on video or DVD. For a quick joy ride, be sure to watch TAXI next the time this and WATERFRONT shows again on Turner Classic Movies. (***)