James Barton

The Time of Your Life (1948) starring James Cagney, William Bendix, Wayne Morris

The Time of Your Life is a very interesting, very different movie. It involves a small central cast who sit and watch, and occasionally comment, on the various people who come in and out of a bar. Some people have compared it to the television series Cheers but other than the setting, the two really don’t have anything in common. The Time of Your Life is frankly more like Seinfeld — the comedy that seemingly doesn’t have a plot, and simply showcases the lives of the various characters. If anything, The Time of Your Life is better, because we actually get to see glimpses of the stories of the various secondary characters, which are compelling.  And for other characters — we don’t.