Der kleine Star

Gotta' credit Warner Bros. with a lot of guts for taking its top gangster star, James Cagney, and stiffly heroic Pat O'Brien and teaming them as a pair of screen writing con artists in a zany farce. But thanks to the wordplay of Sam and Bella Spewack, who adapted "Boy Meets Girl" from their Broadway hit, it works beautifully. And often hilariously. The set-up is simple. Challenged to come up with a script for sputtering cowboy star Dick Foran, Cagney and O'Brien are at wits' (or more like halfwits') end until commissary waitress Marie Wilson collapses while serving lunch. Seems she's about to have a baby (sans husband, a surprise given the strength of the Hays Office in 1938 although her slim figure suggests at least some degree of censorship.) The plucky screenwriters build a storyline around the baby who's born shortly thereafter and goes on to become an 8-month old superstar, eclipsing the increasingly furious Foran. There's also Ralph Bellamy as a pretentious mini-mogul, Bruce Lester as a British extra who's not what he seems, Ronald Reagan in a brief bit as a radio announcer, pre-Blondie Penny Singleton seen even more briefly as a manicurist, a squad of angry rock-throwing Indians and a relay team of slide trombonists to add to the comic confusion. All-in-all, a very entertaining movie -- and when Cagney illustrates a story point with an impromptu tap dance, you get a preview of the "Yankee Doodle" dandy he'll play five years later.

James Cagney had been in a dispute with Warner Brothers since 1936. In 1938 the situation was resolved, and Cagney returned to his home studio - to do THIS? It seemed like they were punishing him for the entire episode, but his autobiography mentions only that he was glad to team with his two pals O'Brien and Bellamy. He does admit that he never deliberately watched his own movies though, and only saw this one on TV after he retired.

James Cagney and Pat O'Brien are two Hollywood writers tasked by their studio with coming up with a script for the studio's top Western star, with Dick Foran basically doing a parody of himself in just about every role as a cowboy that he ever had. A waitress from the studio commissary brings up the writers' lunch and passes out. It turns out she is pregnant, and Cagney and O'Brien get the idea of making a baby central to Foran's next Western. In fact they make the waitress' baby a star. Everyone acts like this waitress invented the concept of infancy, because it never seems to occur to them that if something happened and this baby was unavailable that they could just go out and recruit another one. Marie Wilson plays the infant star's mother, and a little of her dumb and naive act goes a long way, in fact it goes too far and she is just annoying in short order. This was supposed to be a parody of Hollywood, but it was unfunny at best and tedious at its worst.

The first half is almost indescribably bad. It has everybody behaving hyperactively, talking so fast you can hardly understand them, and doing things that make no sense. It is exhibit A in everything that can go wrong in a comedy during the early years of the production code. This approach might have worked for the Marx Brothers, but it was - at the same time - chaotic and boring in this situation.

And then it's like a different director took over at the halfway point, everything calms down, and there's actually room for meaningful dialog, especially between Cagney and O'Brien. It's not particularly compelling, but if the entire film had been like the second half it would have been a respectable 6/10.

Cagney was always trying to break away from his tough guy image, and is obviously relishing this FAST paced screwball comedy (think THE FRONT PAGE/HIS GIRL Friday) about two zany screenwriters. He mugs, he shouts, he dances, he wise-cracks, acts fey-you name it, he does a million bits of business here. Not until ONE,TWO,THREE 25 years later will you see Cagney in this mode again. FRONT PAGE vet Pat O'Brian easily keeps up the pace, but he's playing the "straight" funny man here. Ralph Bellamy is a riot as the idiot producer (college-man) as is Dick Foran, who sends up his own cowboy image (who knew Foran was this good?). At times the pace gets away from the actors and certain scenes are TOO frenetic, and laughs are lost, but generally this is such an off-beat surprise, that despite an ugly, washed out print that makes the film feel even older and less stellar, there is enough entertainment here for those who can plug into the farcical tone of a film that pulls the pants of Hollywood down.

Impressively ludicrous and hyperactive Hollywood self-spoof, Cagney and O'Brien play a pair of screenwriters sponging from a studio too free with its money. Double-talk turns to triple-talk as they do battle with various opposing forces (a hapless cowboy star, a college-educated producer, an effete English extra and even Ronald Reagan) to control a baby-star whose career they created while it was still in the womb; they are only defeated by the Eternal Power of Love as Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Finds Girl Again. Cagney, a genius who always struggled to play anyone who remotely resembled a normal human being, and O'Brien speak so fast that even native speakers of English struggle to follow. They would have given the Marx Brothers a run for their manic money.

Yet the greatest lines (and facial expressions) are reserved for Ralph Bellamy, on top form as the dopey producer (presumably a caricature of some well-known figure). Only Bellamy could spin comic gold from a line like "Good Gad, you've been drinking my milk." "It's 1938" says O'Brien. "I know that," replies Bellamy, "but not everyone's an intellectual."

I didn't find this to be a hilarious comedy, but it's entertaining and has some good performances. Cagney of course is excellent, and Marie Wilson is particularly charming as the naive mother of Happy, Hollywood's newborn sensation. The dialogue is extremely fast (for a challenge, try keeping up with it with your closed-captioning on.) The plot is perhaps a bit silly by today's standards, but good performances make this a worthwhile film. Look out for "in-jokes" about the movie industry, a future American president in a small role, and a lot of trumpets (or are they trombones?) Personally this film never made me laugh out loud, but it made me smile a lot.