Humphrey Bogart in a cast list at the trailer's end. Robinson's role is evocative of Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936), a Bogart leading man breakthrough the studio had originally earmarked for Robinson. The enormous success of "Casablanca" redefined Bogart's career. For the first time, Bogart could be cast successfully as both a tough, strong man and vulnerable love interest. Despite his elevated standing, he did not yet have a contractual right of script refusal. When he got weak scripts he simply dug in his heels and locked horns again with the front office, as he did on the film "Conflict"
James Cagney gun bullets (a common practice in the Hollywood of the time), Cagney refused and insisted the shots be added afterwards. As it turned out, a ricocheting bullet passed through exactly where his head would have been. During his first year back at Warner Bros., Cagney became the studio's highest earner, making $324,000. He completed his first decade of movie-making in 1939 with "The Roaring Twenties", his first film with Raoul Walsh and his last with Bogart. After "The Roaring Twenties", it would be a decade before Cagney made another gangster film. Cagney again received good reviews; Graham Greene stated, "Mr.