Hard to Handle

Ignore the haters that didn't appreciate this unpolished gem from the gold digger era. It's Cagney in a romantic comedy as a low-grade con man, against a mother-daughter team in matching outfits looking to bag a rich husband. When his scams profit, mother Ruth Donnelly thinks he's a perfect mate for daughter Mary Brian, but when his fortunes turn as they often do, the ladies switch polarity. Donnelly never misses an opportunity to kick him while he's down, meanwhile Brian's passion for underdogs cools when he's in the black.

If you're looking for Cagney as a toughguy gangster this isn't it, although the film takes some timely, self-aware potshots at Cagney's image including grapefruit jokes. Here his schemes are mostly harmless like rigging a dance contest, and he's as likely to be scammed as he is to make a big score. I can see how his fans might be disappointed, but Cagney was also a song-and-dance man and a self-depricating comedian. Gold digger comedies, like crime-genre and noir, are filled with amoral characters and backstabbing frenemies but played for laughs. It's easy to forgive shady motives when the leads are wholesome Dick Powell and sunny Priscilla Lane. James Cagney on the otherhand has electricity and an edge that plays for darker characters. Here he's forced to rely on charm and guile - you may be waiting for him to bust up the joint and rub out his enemies, but gold digger heroes are lovers not fighters. This isn't his best fit, but "date movie" Cagney is the nicer guy who doesn't smash citrus in women's faces.

Ruth Donnelly anchors the meandering plot as the most gold digger-y character in a gold digger comedy. What kills the film is the casting of elegant Mary Brian who mostly stands around looking pretty. Her "inverse barometer" reactions to Cagney's ups and downs would have played better with a more sexual screen presence. She represents the female sexual urge, while mother Donnelly represents the brain, conflicted over bad-boy Cagney's tumultuous circumstances. They dress alike because they metaphorically are one woman, but also because it's funny hanging a lampshade on their mother-daughter bear trap. The clever subtext is that Cagney can't win the girl until he figures out how to appeal to both women's sensibilities at the same time.

Lefty Merrill (James Cagney) is a fast-talking scheming producer of dance marathons in California. When his partner steals all the money, he has nothing to pay the winners or the workers and he gets run out of the building. It's a scam anyways since he rigged it for his girlfriend Ruth Waters to win. His next scam is organizing a treasure hunt but the fair owner only planted two five dollar bills and the people tears the fair apart. Meanwhile, Ruth and her mother get kicked out of their room. Next, he finds them in New York City but Ruth has a new rich boyfriend. Lefty manages to get rich with more schemes and proposes to Ruth.

I like Cagney in this. His romance does need some work. Ruth needs to be an idealized girlfriend which drives him to do all these schemes. This pairing just isn't that appealing and has no juice. The mother has a more fascinating relationship with him than the daughter. Nevertheless, Cagney is the man and he is absolutely the bee's knees.

Hard to Handle has James Cagney dusting off his role as con man that he debuted with in Blonde Crazy. That film was a bit more serious and had the virtue of Joan Blondell.

Here the Blondell role is split in two and Cagney deals with a mother/ daughter duo of Ruth Donnelly and Mary Brian. Like Blondell, Donnelly gives as good as she gets from Cagney.

Donnelly and Cagney were roughly the same age and Brian was about six years younger than Cagney. Ridiculous now when you think about Donnelly and Brian being mother and daughter. No film maker could get away with that casting now.

There's no real story to this film, Cagney moves from one con to another, skirting ever so close to illegality. Donnelly and Brian are alternately for and against him and not at the same time either at certain points.

It's a film that relies solely on the charm of Jimmy Cagney which is considerable. And it's the stuff Cagney was disputing with Jack Warner over.

His last con involved the marketing of grapefruit, from the man who made grapefruit tossing a national past time at breakfast/

This is a great little film that demonstrates everything that was fun about the Warner Brothers precodes. There are dance marathons, scams aplenty with Cagney's character at the center of them all - sometimes knowingly sometimes not, and that precode actress you'd just love to strangle - Claire Dodd.

Ruth (Mary Brian) is in love with Cagney's character, but Ruth's gold-digging mother Lil (Ruth Donelly) wants to make sure Ruth marries money. When Cagney is doing well, Lil's all for him as a future son-in-law. When he's not, she's after a photographer - " a 25000 dollar a year man" - as she describes him. The girls dress alike and Lil is always referring to herself and her daughter as "we", as in "we love you" or "we can't marry a pauper like that". Cagney plays an advertising promoter whose ideas sometimes work and sometimes don't, but always to comic effect. This film is not on DVD or VHS, so chances are you've never heard of it. Another interesting tidbit - Ruth Donelly and Mary Brian are actually only about ten years apart in age, yet play mother and daughter pretty effectively. Highly recommended for the silliness of it all.

I'm tempted to say that this is the best film I've ever seen. Obviously it's not but when you're watching it, you believe it is. Cagney is more Cagney than you ever thought possible - he's brilliant, the film is brilliant!

It's like he's been put in a bottle, shaken then released like never ending champagne exploding into your face. Every word he says is like a firework and Mervyn LeRoy's dynamic direction fills every single second with energy and sheer happy, warm fun. You know that this is neither a classic nor clever picture but It's inexplicably entertaining and thoroughly engaging.

Mary Brian is the billed as the lead female she's a bit of a non-entity, the real co-star is Ruth Donnelly as his prospective mercenary mother-in-law. She gives Cagney a run for his money, firing back wisecracks as fast as John McEnroe. Rarely has she been allowed to shine as much as she does in this. She is genuinely funny and she and Cagney make a brilliant comedy double act.

Comedy can age really badly - even comedies from just a decade ago can seem cringingly creaky. Tastes in the early thirties were clearly different to today's but because this is neither too 'left-field' or overly subtle it is still funny. It's so professionally acted, expertly directed, deftly written and above all, so crazily fast that you don't notice that it's actually just a silly light comedy. When you're watching this you're as happy as a dog that's discovered it's been locked in a butcher's shop. Guaranteed enjoyment!