A Lion Is in the Streets is a 1953 American drama film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, whose brother William was the producer and his younger sister Jeanne was a member of the cast.

Hank gathers some of his many friends to fix the place, but Verity begins to realize that he is not as nice as he appears to be; while they do the work, he sees nothing wrong with stopping to read a law book.

A young woman named Flamingo leaps into his arms, but when she learns that he is married, she tries to arrange for an alligator to rid her of her rival, and Verity is injured.

Just as they are starting, Jules arrives, stating that he has proof that Beach murdered Brown and that Hank knowingly signed the false affidavit in exchange for Polli's support.

[2] The Cagney brothers reportedly disagreed about the choice of screenwriter[3] but at one point sought to recruit Roark Bradford.

In 1947, producer William Cagney launched a nationwide contest to find an "exotic" woman to play Flamingo in the film who most closely resembled an artist's conception of the character, with a $5,000 prize.

In 1948, columnist Hedda Hopper speculated that the production had been delayed because of a threat issued by Huey Long's son that he would bring legal action against any studio that produced a film about his father's life.

[12] The film was originally intended to have musical components, with Cagney as a singing politician in the mold of former Texas governor W. Lee O'Daniel.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called A Lion Is in the Streets "a headlong and dynamic drama" and wrote:It has been eight years since James Cagney paid a quarter of a million dollars for the rights to Adria Locke Langley's lurid novel, 'A Lion Is in the Streets,' and announced that he would make a movie from it.

"[16]Critic Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "'A Lion Is in the Streets' literally hurls its best scenes at the audience, and consequently its greatest advantage is the excitement it manages to evoke, even though this is never too prolonged. ...

"[17] Jane Corby of the Brooklyn Eagle recounted the reaction of a theater audience on the day of the film's New York premiere: "Many of the Paramount patrons seemed to be under the impression that they were viewing a comedy ... laughing out loud at Cagney’s speech-making and his intermittent Southern accent and even finding funny the most serious moments of the film.

Their attitude was understandable because, with its picturesque backwoods characters and disconnected methods of telling the story, the production often takes on a musical comedy air.”[18] Variety called the film "just an average drama.