Huxley is bound to lose.One of the speakeasy regulars, bootlegging Baravelli (Chico Marx) works in the back room, filling expensive-looking whiskey bottles labeled Scotch and Rye with inferior booze.He is infatuated with Nick's girlfriend and wishes that he could be in his buddy's place.Awkward with women, he lurches toward her for a dance, wildly spins her around, offers her a Rolling Rock beer ("the best around"), and then inarticulately asks: "You really like Nick alot, huh?" He almost steals a kiss but halts midway into it.The tough-guy Cagney persona, most remembered in earlier Warner Bros.gangster films (such as inThe Public Enemy (1931),G-Men (1935),Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), andThe Roaring Twenties (1939)) was completely revolutionized with the charismatic actor playing an ebullient, stiff-legged, egotistical hoofer speaking from the side of his mouth and successfully grabbing for the American dream, although he had been in an earlier Busby Berkeley backstage musical titledFootlight Parade (1933).He and his little four page paper against hat mighty syndicate.And all to defend the right of one small miner who stuck to his claim.And they tried everything - bribery, intimidation, and then..." Jeff also remembers what difficult odds his father fought against:I suppose, Mr.Paine, when a fella bucks up against a big organization like that, one man by himself can't get very far, can he?When the country bumpkin Smith gets off the train with Paine at Union Station in Washington DC, he follows the Senator like a foster-son.Stanley Kubrick abandoned his own plans to make a similar film in the planning stages, called "The Aryan Papers" - based on the Louis Begley novelWartime Lies.