It was an interesting idea to film this William Saroyan play, which does not seem to lend itself particularly well to a screen adaptation. It turned out well enough, and in particular most of the characters are brought to life believably and effectively. James Cagney stars in what is quite an atypical role for him, and he is backed up by a good cast of character actors.
The story has Cagney as Joe, a regular at Nick's saloon who watches everyone come and go. Rather than a main story line, there are instead a number of things happening in the lives of the characters - some are important and some trivial, but all of them matter to the characters themselves. To make it work as a movie, it is essential that the cast makes the characters realistic and worth caring about, and in that regard they succeed pretty well.
William Bendix is very enjoyable as Nick, and the cast also includes Jimmy Lydon, Cagney's sister Jeanne, and Tom Powers, who is pretty effective as a menacing bully. Even most of the minor characters get some good moments of their own.
This is the kind of movie that can be pretty enjoyable if you are in the right mood for it, but that won't seem like much if you aren't. Most of it relies on simple conversation and interaction among the characters, and it has a decidedly offbeat feel to it, but if/when that's what you're in the mood for, then this works rather well.
