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A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Save for the debut of James Cagney and Joan Blondell Sinner's Holiday is a rather lifeless early sound experiment of urban lingo spoken from the side of most of the cast's mouth. Chuck full of cynicism and greed with a murder and sappy romance thrown in for good measure it flounders from the outset.Ma Delano runs a penny arcade on the midway with her three kids. Two contribute but youngest Harry (Cagney) would rather work where the big money is with bootlegger Mitch McKane. After McKane fires his barker Angel Harrigan (Grant Withers) Ma takes him on. When Mc Kane ends up dead Harrigan becomes the prime suspect.Sinner's Holiday is filled with hard boiled eggs but most are rotten. It's endless tough talk and little else as director John Adolfi, probably ham strung by the microphone does little to bring any verve or suspense to his scenes. The mercurial Cagney and sassy Blondell bring some life to their limited roles but Withers sarcastic lead looks bored most of the time and Evelyn Knapp as his love interest about as engrossed as he. Holiday is no way to enjoy one.

Whenever "Flying Down to Rio" is mentioned, it is usually to talk about the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - not about the actual stars, who were Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond. This movie is in the same boat. James Cagney and Joan Blondell were in the original Broadway play called "Penny Arcade" that only ran for 24 performances. It was bought to the screen with a snappier title "Sinner's Holiday" and Cagney and Blondell were bought to Hollywood to recreate their roles. Apparently both were signed at the insistence of Al Jolson, who had bought the rights to the play and was determined to have the pair in the movie. I agree with the reviewer that says Cagney acted like a veteran, it is so hard to believe this was his first film. The nominal stars were Grant Withers and Evalyn Knapp. In 1930 Withers looked a good bet for stardom, his career had taken off in 1928, in 1929 he was in 10 films, in 1930 8 films. The next year he was still the star to Cagney's co-star in "Other Men's Women" but then things went wrong and by 1932 he was on Poverty Row.The opening shots really establish the seedy atmosphere of carnival life - tired looking dancers, rowdy carnival barkers. Ma Delano (Lucille LaVerne) rules the Penny Arcade and her family with an iron will. She is determined to keep her kids away from the booze that was the ruin of her husband, a champion prize fighter. Unbeknownst to her , her favourite son Harry (James Cagney) is in it up to his neck. He and Mitch McKane (Warren Hymer) have a bootlegging business on the side. When Harry kills Mitch, Ma Delano is determined to get her favourite child off - even if it means pointing the finger at Angel (Grant Withers), a likable, itinerant roustabout, who has caught the eye of Jennie Delano. But Jenni is a witness to the crime and there is some tense acting at the end as alibis are smashed and the right man is finally caught.Even though the story is interesting it is very "talkie" - what action there is , is often stopped while characters talk about their dreams and aspirations - it becomes "gooey" at times. Cagney and Blondell are standouts in their roles with a really natural acting style. Seeing Joan Blondell in this, her first role, I am surprised she spent the next couple of years in "girlfriend" type roles. Myrtle was a good role with plenty of different emotions and she proved she was a natural for stardom. This was also Evalyn Knapp's first lead in a feature but she didn't exactly set the film world on fire. Noel Madison also made his film debut - his face is instantly recognisable in countless films, usually playing low life gangsters and henchmen but his stage career was different in that he played mostly sophisticated characters. He was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild and his membership number was 5.Recommended.

Sinner's Holiday (1930) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Somewhat interesting drama about a small time crook (James Cagney) who kills a man in self defense but let's his sister's boyfriend (Grant Withers) take the blame. The most interesting aspect of this film is the fact that it was Cagney and Joan Blondell's screen debut. The film takes place inside Coney Island, which is another interesting thing to see. Other than that this early talkie is like many others of its day. There's way too much talking and none of it is very interesting. The direction is also pretty weak and there's just not too much life in the story. The relationship between Cagney and his mother played by Lucille LaVerne is also very strange in an incest type of way.

I could tell from the trailer for SINNERS' HOLIDAY that this is a film I could very well do without viewing--but I tuned in to see Cagney in his debut performance.This is a museum piece, creaky in plot and development with abysmal stage dialogue and unnatural performances from GRANT WITHERS and EVELYN KNAPP, both of whom get top billing but neither one able to act their way out of a paper bag.JAMES CAGNEY has the thankless role of the son caught up in a murder charge, a n'er-do-well punk with a trampy girlfriend (JOAN BLONDELL in unflattering make-up and hairstyle), and a harridan for a mother (LUCILLE La VERNE), the woman who gave The Witch a voice in Disney's "Snow White" several years later. None of these characters have any depth or engage the viewer for more than a few seconds. La Verne is particularly unpleasant in the central mother role.Summing up: Nothing good to say about this one, except that Cagney alone deserves praise for his crying scene. He really throws himself into the part.This is obviously a quickie churned out by the Warner factory in the early '30s as a part of their crime drama series.