Nick's Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace sure attracts some strange and eccentric characters, some looking for work and others just looking for something to help them pass away the day.
There's something that proves surprisingly charming about this film. It's offbeat, doesn't quite seem to fit with the time in which it was made but there's just something here that tends to endear this movie to the viewer, especially on repeated viewings and to be honest, I found quite a bit of humor in it too. Perhaps it's because its eccentric characters seem to ring true in more ways than one as they often seem like just the unexpected offbeat sort you just might have run into in a place like Nick's in said time and era. Maybe it's because offbeat eccentrics certainly are not a rarity in today's world and it becomes easy to relate to events here, strange and bewildering as they often are. James Cagney steals the show as Joe, whose hobby is people, in a role quite atypical for him but really it's the collection and interaction featuring all involved that grabs your interest.
There's something that proves surprisingly charming about this film. It's offbeat, doesn't quite seem to fit with the time in which it was made but there's just something here that tends to endear this movie to the viewer, especially on repeated viewings and to be honest, I found quite a bit of humor in it too. Perhaps it's because its eccentric characters seem to ring true in more ways than one as they often seem like just the unexpected offbeat sort you just might have run into in a place like Nick's in said time and era. Maybe it's because offbeat eccentrics certainly are not a rarity in today's world and it becomes easy to relate to events here, strange and bewildering as they often are. James Cagney steals the show as Joe, whose hobby is people, in a role quite atypical for him but really it's the collection and interaction featuring all involved that grabs your interest.