Ragtime (1981)

Based on a novel of the same name by E L Doctorow, Ragtime is a look back at America in the early 1900s – innocent yet tumultuous, glamorous yet unjust – looking at a series of actual events in the early 20th century and blending non-fictional characters into fictional ones.

Former chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit (Elizabeth McGovern) is married to Henry Thaw (Robert Joy), a wealthy and insanely jealous man who enjoys sadistic pleasures but cannot tolerate much else in life.

He shoots and kills Evelyn’s former lover, millionaire Stanford White (Norman Mailer), at the opening of Madison Square Garden in New York.

When Evelyn cooperates in libellous testimony with Thaw’s equally despicable mother (Eloise O’Brien), the killer is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to an asylum.

Madame Thaw then proceeds to double-cross Evelyn because the young woman has taken up with an impressionable young inventor.

The young man (Brad Dourif) is never referred to by name (just “Younger Brother”). Nor are the people he lives with (his sister and her husband) referred to as anything but “Mother” (Mary Steenburgen) and “Father” (James Olson).

Into their lives, one sunny day, comes a young, unwed black woman named Sarah (Debbie Allen) with her newborn baby. Acting against her husband’s wishes, “Mother” decides to give the two a home.

Ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr (Howard E. Rollins Jr.) turns up one day with an offer of marriage; the child is his.

A racial prank committed by some bigoted redneck firemen alters the course of Walker’s life and gives unity to the second half of the film.

The theme is injustice, and the focus is on the still-existing system that rewards the rich and penalises the poor.

The demented Thaw eventually celebrates new freedom, while the proud, angry Walker – forced into a life of armed retaliation, terrorising fire stations – can know only doom.

Eventually, with Younger Brother’s help, Coalhouse occupies the JP Morgan museum in Manhattan and threatens to bomb it unless his honour is avenged.

New York Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo (James Cagney in his final film) arrives on the scene to handle the outrage of the black man whose sense of honour cannot accept the appeals of either Booker T Washington (Moses Gunn) or Father.

Waldo orchestrates the finale of desperate tension and violence.

This film reunited 81-year-old James Cagney, coming out of a 20-year retirement, with Pat O’Brien, his frequent co-star from the 1930s and 1940s. It was the last theatrical film for both of them.

Despite Cagney’s failing health, he defied his doctor’s advice and appeared in as many scenes as he was able. Consequently, most of his scenes show him seated.

Because of the presence of the ailing Cagney, in what became his final big screen appearance, the movie was officially exempted from the long-running actors’ strike of the early 1980s. It was the only production to receive that honour.

New York Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo
James Cagney
Evelyn Nesbit
Elizabeth McGovern
Henry Thaw
Robert Joy
Mrs Thaw
Eloise O’Brien
Delmas
Pat O’Brien
Stanford White
Norman Mailer
Younger Brother
Brad Dourif
Father
James Olson
Mother
Mary Steenburgen
Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Howard E. Rollins Jr.
Sarah
Debbie Allen
Booker T. Washington
Moses Gunn
Houdini
Jeff DeMunn
Jerome
Bruce Boa
Brigit
Hoolihand Burke
Grandfather
Edwin Cooper
PC O’Donnell
Jeff Daniels
Tateh
Mandy Patinkin
Mameh
Fran Drescher
Willie Conklin
Kenneth McMillan
Vernon Elliott
Herman Meckler
Inspector McNeil
Don Plumley
Teddy Roosevelt
Robert Boyd
Vice President Fairbanks
Thomas A. Carlin
Dr Muller
Ron Weyand
Rabbi
Chaim Blatter
JP Morgan
Donald Bisset
Solomon Peretz
Pavel Landovský
Evelyn’s Dance Instructor
Donald O’Connor
Gang Member
Samuel L. Jackson

Director
Milos Forman