Gee, thanks, I think.
Now, can I go back to not knowing?
He's right. Hose monster is a sex crazed woman. Barbara Peyton was unabashedly that. She started by screwing the producers and word got around. She had only made a couple of B movies when the word got around to Cagney's brother, who nailed her and cast her in Cagney's next movie, the female LEAD in Kiss tomorrow goodbye.
She did not stop there though, she continued her sex crazed ways until Hollywood Confidential blew the whistle. It was in regard to her tryst with the older Franchot tone, I believe. The good roles dried up and after a few more B movies she gradually became a Hollywood prostitute, a junkie and died way to young, in her 30's if memory serves. I don't remember what killed her, overdose or some related disease or a brutal beating by a pimp, which happened plenty.
The book was written by Horace McCoy. Remember "They shoot Horses, Don't They?" He wrote that novel too. Cagney read "Kiss" and decided to change his mind about giving up gangster movies. The gangster Ralph Cotter was an Ivy League gangster by choice, quite a switch from the WOPS, Bonnie and Clyde/Baby Faced Nelsons and the rest.
It is to this day my favorite gangster film, and there have been a ton of good ones!
