Me and My Gal

Spencer Tracy's Fox films are an interesting lot and one can count himself lucky if he gets to see any of his early work. For some reason the films that he did at that first studio he was contracted to are rarely seen, some I suspect are lost. Fortunately Me And My Gal was not. And it's a real Irish treat.

Me And My Gal casts Tracy in a part that either James Cagney or Pat O'Brien would have scored brilliantly with at Warner Brothers. He's a happy go lucky tough Irish cop who falls for wisecracking waitress Joan Bennett. Joan's just fine, but Joan Blondell or Barbara Stanwyck would have been perfect casting.

Bennett has a sister Marian Nixon who is married to George Chandler, but fooling around with gangster Frank Walsh. When he makes a daring prison break he takes refuge in Nixon's house while Chandler who is a merchant seaman is away. Also in the house is Chandler's father a wheelchair bound paralyzed World War veteran played by silent movie pioneer Henry B. Walthall. Walthall has an interesting way of communicating to the outside world his thoughts that prove ultimately to be Walsh's undoing.

Some nice snappy dialog banter between Tracy and Bennett is what really moves this film along. At one point these two do a really great parody of Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill. It should be seen beside the film version of same that MGM did that same year with Clark Gable and Norma Shearer and one the Marx Brothers did in Animal Crackers. It's as funny as the Marx Brothers.

Tracy's role here is very typical of the kind of roughneck parts he did in his early years for the most part. He was even doing the same roles in his first few MGM contract parts. His advancement to becoming what many consider to be the screen's greatest actor ever came when Jeanette MacDonald asked for him to be cast as Father Mullin in San Francisco. That opened a career whole new vistas for him.

Still these early films do have a lot going for them. Write to TCM and get some of these out on DVD and shown on television. Let's hope many of them still exist.

Raoul Walsh was one of the greatest directors of the '30's and '40s, mainly because of the reason that his movies were always such of a high quality and so entertaining to watch. This is a movie from before the real glory days of Walsh and it seemed like he was still having difficulties with this movie to find its proper style and approach.

The different story lines with the different characters just don't always connect with each other. The movie also takes too long with its story to set up things and introduce its characters. The movie is already a real short one and it wastes too much time with its set up. It doesn't even become fully clear what this movie is truly going to be about until like half an hour before the end.

At first this movie even seems as if its going to be a comedy but not a really funny one though. It then picks a romantic approach and after that it turns more into a thriller/drama. This of course also makes the movie a fairly disjointed one and also works out bad for the movie its story, as well as its style.

It's mostly the last halve hour that still makes this movie a perfectly watchable enough movie. It's also then that the story becomes truly solid and the movie also turns into a more original one to watch. Before that the movie was mostly just being formulaic.

It really isn't Raoul Walsh best movie, also in terms of directing, editing and camera-work. It's a cheap and simple looking movie that lacks in style and a good main clear approach of the story. I can see and understand what Raoul Walsh tried to achieve and tried to blend some of the most successful genres of its time into one movie. It's an approach he much better executed in his later movie "The Strawberry Blond" and I'm sure that there are a couple of more better examples to mention but I haven't seen all Raoul Walsh movies obviously. It's not as if this movie is an horrible attempt and is one bad movie but it nevertheless can't be seen as a successful attempt either.

The movie also features Spencer Tracy in one of his earliest roles. His acting seemed modern for its time and he did a great job in this movie.

A movie that luckily gets better toward its end.

7/10

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"Me and My Gal" is an ingratiating pre-Code comedy-drama enhanced by spirited banter between Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett who play two young people feeling each other out as potential mates. Bennett is surprisingly good as a wise-cracking, down-to-earth waitress who speaks her mind and can easily hold her own against Tracy's New York City cop. The pre-Code era's lack of pretense about sexuality makes their impassioned kiss in the diner -- as the two knock over items on the lunch counter -- all the more humorous. Bennett, both impressed and amused by Tracy's kiss, responds: "If you're gonna kiss me like that, you're gonna have to marry me." It's a magical little moment that caused the passage of time since 1932 to drop away and left me there with them to enjoy the fun.

A sub-plot involves Bennett's newly married sister, a good girl who nevertheless can't resist her bad boy gangster ex-boyfriend. When he needs to hide from the police, she installs him in a spare bedroom, under the nose of her disabled father-in-law who is confined to a wheelchair, can't speak a word and communicates only by blinking his eyes in Morse code. Later, when everything gets resolved, Tracy tells the father-in-law that the daughter-in-law is a good kid at heart in spite of what she did, expressing pre-Code generosity for forgiveness and tolerance, even in sexual transgressions with gangsters.

'Me and My Gal' is an entertaining romance/mystery/screwball comedy, featuring charming performances by Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, 18 years before they would pair again in the classic 'Father of the Bride.' Both stars are at their early best here, zinging wisecracks at each other at a frantic pace. Joan Bennett is the real surprise, shining in a role that would have been well suited for Myrna Loy or Claudette Colbert. Worthwhile for the two stars.

It is probably no exaggeration to state that Me and My Gal (MAMG) is an important film with historical significance. MAMG is also a charming and entertaining movie-----one that the eminent British film scholar Leslie Halliwell characterized as a "Pleasant little programmer, very evocative of its period.". In addition, it contains a cinematic record of 32 year old SpencerTracy delivering an appealing natural performance that compares quite favorably with his later acting style-----one which has led many critics and filmgoers to regard him as the greatest cinematic actor of all time. Finally, MAMG captures lovely 22 year old Joan Bennett in all of her youthful spirited beauty-----when she was still a natural blond and before becoming a less interesting brunette Hedy Lamarr look-alike in 1938.

MAMG was made for the Fox Film Corporation before its merger with.20th Century. Both Tracy and director Raoul Walsh worked extensively for Fox during this time. A number of Fox films from the early 1930s ended up as lost (either temporarily or sometimes forever), including Tracy's most notable Fox film------The Power and the Glory (1933).

When we see Bennett and Tracy convincingly playing youthful and romantic characters, it is easy to believe in them and their story. Tracy's command of his part in the complex narrative is astonishing in its realism. And Bennett is sexy and sassy in an engaging and lovable way that will remind many of Joan Blondell at her best. We are so fortunate that MAMG managed to survive for us to enjoy this record of these two great stars at the dawn of their significant careers. In just 79 minutes, we can see a film that is funny, dramatic, romantic, annoying (the extended drunk scenes tended to slow down the narrative), thrilling, violent, charming and even abstract (with its cinematic nod to Eugene O'Neill's stream of consciousness play and film Strange Interlude).

Don't miss MAMG the next time TCM shows it. MAMG might not have been a classic. But even with whatever shortcomings it may have had, MAMG is still a delight!