In One, Two, Three (1961), James Cagney played C. R. MacNamara, a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin whose life becomes a whirlwind of Cold War complications. Directed by Billy Wilder, the comedy is played at breakneck speed, and Cagney, in his sixties, kept pace with every line.
MacNamara is a fast-talking businessman trying to manage his boss’s daughter, a Soviet official and the divided city around him, all at once. Cagney’s comic timing — the same speed that made his gangsters so vivid — here becomes pure farce, and he delivers Wilder’s dialogue with remarkable precision.
One, Two, Three was Cagney’s last major film for twenty years, and it is a fitting late showcase: a star who could still command a film with nothing but talk, timing and presence.