Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

The legendary James Cagney (White Heat) is his final great gangster role. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye offers Cagney at his nastiest. The star plays career criminal Ralph Cotter, a lowlife maniac who doesn't care about anything except his next "kill." After violently busting out from prison and murdering his partner, the cold-blooded mobster satisfies a pent-up lust for violence in an unstoppable and vicious crime-spree. Dirty cops, Inspector Charles Webber (Ward Bond) and Lieutenant John Reese (Barton MacLane) try to strong-arm the fascinating creep, but he turns the table on them and blackmails them with the help of a crooked lawyer, Keith 'Cherokee' Mandon (Luther Adler). Upon its theatrical release, the film was banned in the state of Ohio as "a sordid sadistic presentation of brutality and an extreme presentation of crime with explicit steps in commission." The wonderful cast includes Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Steve Brodie, Rhys Williams and William Frawley. Stylishly directed by Gordon Douglas (Only the Valiant).