Short Cut to Hell

I would have expected far more from the only movie directed by Jimmy Cagney the legend. This is not a so bad movie, but bland, a simple B movie nothing else. The main character, some kind of Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE, before Jean-Pierre Melville's LE SAMOURAI, and speaking of Le SAMOURAI, with Alain Delon, here you also have this lead character, a hired killer who loves cats more than humans, as Delon in SCORPIO. Besides this, especially the short sequence, dialogue line when the killer talks about his childhood, there is nothiing really personal, as you could have guessed from director Cagney. Why did he did this movie anyway?