Ragtime (1981)

Based on the sprawling Doctorow novel, .this film begins brilliantly offering the viewer a kaleidoscope of  images from the New York of 1906 mixing real and fictional characters.  So far, so good, but the scriptwriters then choose to focus on a single storyline and we are left with a 155 mintue film about an uppity "nigger" whose new car has been crapped upon -- to put no finer point on it.  There are however many compensations not least of which is the return of James Cagney to the screen after twenty years in his last role as a police commissioner.  The cast is actually all very able and it is interesting to see certain well-known faces in early roles.  The director is Milos Forman and the movie is as professionally mounted as any.  I just wish he had somehow managed to capture the brilliance of the book more broadly.