The Oklahoma Kid | |
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Directed by | Lloyd Bacon |
Produced by | Samuel Bischoff, Hal B. Wallis |
Written by | Wally Kline Edward E. Paramore |
Starring |
James Cagney Humphrey Bogart Rosemary Lane |
Music by |
Max Steiner Stephen Foster |
Cinematography | James Wong Howe |
Edited by | Owen Marks |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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85 min |
Language | English |
The Oklahoma Kid is a 1939 western film starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. The film was directed for Warner Bros. by Lloyd Bacon. Cagney plays an adventurous gunslinger in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat while Bogart portrays his black-clad and viciously villainous nemesis. The film is often remembered for Cagney's character rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his hand together and exulting, "Feel that air!"
The supporting cast features Rosemary Lane, Donald Crisp, and Ward Bond. Rosemary Lane's sister Priscilla Lane also starred with Cagney and Bogart in The Roaring Twenties that same year.
President Cleveland signs the bill allowing the sale of the Cherokee Strip (actually, the Cherokee Outlet) in the future state of Oklahoma. After the money arrives by train, it is then loaded onto a stagecoach which subsequently gets robbed by Whip McCord (Humphrey Bogart) and his gang. Jim Kincaid, also known as "The Oklahoma Kid", (James Cagney) sees the robbery, and then ambushes the gang and makes off with the money.
Settlers are arriving to stake their property claims in what would be the Cherokee Strip Land Run of 1893. At a settlers' dance, the Kid meets Jane Hardwick (Rosemary Lane), daughter of Judge Hardwick (Donald Crisp), dancing with her and asking if she can "feel the air." Before the new territory is opened, McCord sneaks in with his cronies and stakes a "sooner" claim. When John Kincaid (Hugh Sothern) and his son, Ned Kincaid (Harvey Stephens), arrive, they are swindled into granting McCord the saloon and gambling concessions in exchange for the site that they had planned to develop into a town. After the area is built and developed, it is overcome by crime and unlawful killings under McCord's influence. Hoping to bring about law-and-order, Judge Hardwick and Ned campaign to elect John Kincaid as mayor of Tulsa, but when another candidate is killed, McCord frames John Kincaid and has him arrested for murder.