The Time of Your Life

The Time of Your Life is a 1948 American comedy drama film directed by H. C. Potter and starring James Cagney, William Bendix, Wayne Morris and Jeanne Cagney. A Cagney Production, The Time of Your Life was produced by Cagney's brother William and adapted by Nathaniel Curtis from the 1939 William Saroyan play of the same name. Cinematography was by James Wong Howe. Plot The film is set, with a few exceptions, entirely at Nick's 'Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace' in San Francisco, where a sign in the window announces "Come in and be yourself," signed "Nick" (William Bendix). Joe (James Cagney) sits at one of the saloon's tables much of the time, observing people coming and going. He is unemployed but apparently well-off, constantly ordering champagne and giving advice or money to others. (It is implied that he has a knack for choosing winning horses at races.) He desires to live "a civilized life" without hurting anyone and believes the real truth in people is found in their dreams of themselves, not the hard facts of their actual existence. Joe's best friend and "stooge," Tom (Wayne Morris), believes that he owes his life to Joe and runs peculiar errands for him without any apparent desire to make a life for himself. Other major characters include Kitty Duval (Jeanne Cagney), a supposed burlesque actress whose real name is Katerina Kornovsky. It is implied that she has actually been a prostitute. Tom is innocently infatuated with her, but he only gets the nerve to ask her out and to pursue his courtship with Joe's urging and help. One young man, Willie (Richard Erdmann), is a "marble game [pinball machine] maniac." Another, Dudley Raoul Bostwick (Jimmy Lydon), keeps trying to get up the nerve to call his girlfriend, Elsie Mandelspiegel (Nanette Parks). At one point, he mistakenly calls a different, older woman (Renie Riano) and asks her to meet him at Nick's but pretends to be someone else when she arrives. Harry (Paul Draper), a "natural-born tap dancing comedian" who cannot make people laugh, is hired by Nick and dances often during the film.