See Part I: “Handsy Patron at Black Joe’s (Uncredited).”

After correcting the “Singing Fool” credit on James Cagney’s IMDb page, I realized there was another of his credits that never seemed right to me. In 1935, so IMDb and Wikipedia claimed, Cagney appeared uncredited in MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty,” starring Clark Gable. Here’s the story per IMDb’s trivia section:

Actor James Cagney was sailing his boat off of Catalina Island, California, and passed the area where the film’s crew was shooting aboard the Bounty replica. Cagney called to director Frank Lloyd, an old friend, and said that he was on vacation and could use a couple of bucks, and asked if Lloyd had any work for him. Lloyd put him into a sailor's uniform, and Cagney spent the rest of the day as an extra playing a sailor aboard the Bounty. Cagney is clearly visible near the beginning of the movie. 

During my initial run through Cagney films, I’d watched “Mutiny,” scanning the screen for the “clearly visible” Cagney. Couldn’t find him. Now I wondered: Had I missed him or was he just not there? Was the story bullshit? So I watched the movie again, stopping and scanning, stopping and scanning. There are a lot of extras in a lot of striped shirts. None of them are clearly visible James Cagney. Or even remotely visible James Cagney.

And then I realized I didn’t even have to do that. What’s the internet but the repository of our collective knowledge and/or bunk? If Cagney were “clearly visible” near the beginning of the movie, someone, somewhere, at some point, would’ve taken a screenshot and posted it. So I did an image search and combed through the options. There’s a lot of bare-chested men, a lot of sailors in striped shirts. None are clearly James Cagney:

Some, however, are clearly Eddie Quillan.

If you squint, you might mistake Quillan—a future Ellery Queen and an early television staple—for Cagney. He’s about the same height (5’6” to Cagney’s 5’5”), and he can do a bit of a sneer, but he’s younger and thinner, with a weaker jaw and less of a presence. So maybe early in the internet age, someone mistook Quillan for Cagney. Not sure who came up with the story of Cagney sailing his boat off Catalina Island and jumping on board for a laugh, but again, it’s not in his memoir, it’s not in his authorized biography, it’s not mentioned anywhere except online—the repository of our collective knowledge and/or bunk.

One of the many places it isn’t mentioned online? The American Film Institute Catalog, which gives us credits, synopses, production details, and background history for every American-made movie. No Cagney is listed under “Mutiny” and no “Mutiny” is mentioned for Cagney. But of course AFI’s site doesn’t rely on user-generated data like IMDb and Wikipedia. It relies on … what are they called again? … experts.

Per AFI, the “Mutiny” story is technically possible. These are the production dates for “Mutiny”:

• May 8 to Sept. 11, 1935

1935 was a busy year for Cagney but he might have been able to fit another day of filming into his busy schedule:

• “G-Men”: Feb. 20 to April 1
• “The Irish in Us”: begun May 25
• “Frisco Kid”: begun August 7
• “Ceiling Zero”: ended Nov. 2

If we had the ending dates for “Irish” and “Frisco,” we might know definitively.

But the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that it was all bullshit. The Catalina Island story would have us believe that even with this packed schedule, Cagney (called “The Faraway Fella” by good friend Pat O’Brien for his tendency to disappear from Hollywood) would use a rare day off to call out to “old friend” Frank Lloyd (whom Cagney never mentions in his memoir), and join an MGM film (when he was under contract to Warner Bros.) as an extra (when he was someone who looked out for extras on his own sets rather than take their spots).

Nothing fit.

Given all this, and hot off my “Singing Fool” success, I tried to get rid of the “Bounty” credit from Cagney’s IMDb page, too. This time, IMDb's verdict went against me:

We have been unable to verify your contribution. … you now have an option to provide evidence with your additions, as well as corrections or deletions.

I stared at that sentence for a long while. Was IMDb asking me to provide evidence for a thing that didn’t exist? To prove a negative? If this were a conversation, I’d respond, “Just show me that it exists. Because I don’t know how to show you all the ways a thing doesn’t exist.” But as we all know, it’s not a conversation. 

I tried one more time. No soap.

Next: Correcting IMDb Part III: Missing Gatekeepers

Busy boy