In Frank Lloyd’s fictional tale, Blood on the Sun, James Cagney stars as an American newspaper writer for The Tokyo Chronicle in Tokyo circa 1929.
His goal is to try holding on to and smuggle out of the country the secret Tanaka plan for Japanese world conquest.
The film co-stars Sylvia Sidney, in her first screen appearance since 1941, as an Anglo-Chinese double agent who has her own agenda with the Japanese.
The attempt to weave the real historical document into the fiction is not very successful. But Cagney commands with his derring-do, fist-swinging and Judo to keep up the interest. Without his performance, it would have been a silly, routine programmer.
CAST
James Cagney
Sylvia Sidney
Wallace Ford
Rosemary De Camp
Robert Armstrong
John Emery
Leonard Strong
Frank Puglia
Jack Halloran
Hugh Ho
Philip Ahn
Joseph Kim
Marvin Mueller
Rhys Williams
Porter Hall
James Bell
Grace Lem
Oy Chan
George Paris
Hugh Beaumont
CREDITS:
United Artists.
Produced by William Cagney.
Directed by Frank Lloyd.
Screenplay by Lester Cole.
Based on a story by Garrett Fort.
