"The Roaring Twenties" is a saga of liquor and love that rolls through that fabulous decade and down into the gloom and common sense of the thirties. The show belongs to Jimmy Cagney, who is really in his medium as the doughboy-boot-legger-bum. Out of what might be considered "just another toughie role" by many other actors Cagney has made a perfectly understandable human being swept up in a crazy era and thrown down again with a thud when that era comes to a close. Gladys George, as a considerably washed-behind-the-ears Texas Guinan, follows in Cagney's wake and gives him all the acting support he could ask for. But it is an insult to all Harvard graduates, past, present, and future, that Jeffrey Lynn has been cast as a product of our fair institution.

On the whole, as a historical biography of a bootlegger, "The Roaring Twenties" does a pretty good job,--but the real worth of the production is Cagney's performance.