Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye DVD, 1950

Rick Burin puts on his fedora and checks out Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, one of MovieMail's latest exclusives and a follow-up to James Cagney's White Heat.

The success of 1949’s White Heat inspired Warner Bros to lay on more of the same. The result: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. Again, Jimmy Cagney is a hood with a hair-trigger temper. But this time his many psychoses are levered by a charm and cocky way with a one-liner that, if anything, make him even more menacing. One minute he’s grinning and quipping, the next he’s whipping Barbara Payton about the head with a towel.

After breaking out of prison, Cagney sticks up a convenience store, only to have the loot stolen by corrupt cop Weber (Ward Bond). So Cagney decides to blackmail him. ‘You try and frame Weber and you’ll frame yourself right into the morgue,’ Payton tells him. ‘He’s too smart for you.’ ‘He stopped being smart when he took my money,’ Cagney replies. Instead, danger comes from an unexpected source, as he falls for the daughter of a Hearst-like businessman.

This well-directed, brutal crime yarn is powered by Cagney’s compelling turn, with fine supporting characterisations by Bond, Luther Adler and Helena Carter.

Rick Burin on 1st August 2009
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I bought this DVD thinking it was a bona fide copy of the well-received Warner Bros. movie and would be the same quality as most other Warner titles. Unfortunately, it... more >

I bought this DVD thinking it was a bona fide copy of the well-received Warner Bros. movie and would be the same quality as most other Warner titles. Unfortunately, it is released by a company called Palladium who put out discs made from public domain copies of prints which are many years past their sell by date. The end result is a shoddy, soft copy of the film which is much worse than the copy I made when it was transmitted on TV. Avoid. Not worth more than 99p. < less