Other Men's Women

The plot is pure hokum, so it's the extras that "make" the movie: The backdrop of trains and trainyards, Joan Blondell in an extraneous role as a saucy waitress, James Cagney in an early supporting part (he has a nice bit on top of a moving train, and also does some dancing), J. Farrell MacDonald helping plant peas by making holes in the dirt with his peg leg, cool bridge and train miniatures, etc. Approach with modest expectations

I had never heard of this movie but the only reason i watched it was because of James Cagney. Cagney had a pretty small part but i didn't mind. This movie stars Grant Withers and Regis Toomey as best friends who work as railroad conductors and Toomey is married to Mary Astor. Withers is dating Joan Blondell but he falls in love with Mary Astor instead. Withers is staying at Toomey's house but he leaves because he doesn't want to hurt Toomey. Toomey finds out why he left and they get in a fight on the train and cause an accident. After the accident they find Toomey is blind and then this big storm comes. I don't wont to spoil the ending because you can find it out for yourself. Both Withers and Toomey are good and so is Mary Astor and Joan Blondell.

I have no doubt that when William Wellman directed James Cagney in Other Men's Women he had him filed for future reference and then used him so successfully in The Public Enemy. Cagney and Joan Blondell in secondary parts outshine the leads of Grant Withers, Mary Astor, and Regis Toomey in this working man's love triangle film.

Not that the leads give bad performances, but charisma can't be kept down. Toomey is a railroad worker married to Astor and one night he brings an inebriated Grant Withers home to sleep it off. Turns out that Withers and Astor knew each other back in the day and before long the love sparks start going off.

Around this time Grant Withers was married to Loretta Young ever so briefly, but in Young's Catholic tradition, the marriage was annulled due to his real life drinking and carousing. Withers's excesses led his career on a downward spiral and he took work where he got it and in mostly lower grade films until his suicide in 1959. John Wayne tried to use him in films when he could. Withers would appear in support of James Cagney in 1954 in Run for Cover as a western outlaw leader.

Toomey was a very competent character actor, but just not lead material. Still he does well and in a few years he'd be supporting James Cagney in G-Men. Mary Astor is fine, but far from Brigid O'Shaughnessy, you'd never know it was the same actress.

Cagney as a friend to both Withers and Toomey and Blondell in an early gem of a part as a wisecracking waitress, show exactly why they would rise to the top of the Warner Brothers pecking order.

William Wellman did some very nice location photography in and around the railroad yards, very similar in fact to that done by John Frankenheimer in The Train. And Wellman got good performances from his cast.

But I'm sure he had no doubt as to who a future star was.

Other Men's Women (1931)

If you only watch the first twenty minutes of this you'll get a slightly corny movie about a couple of pals and a couple of gals and a slightly mixed set of affections that is pure innocence. The acting is a little forced, but there is good fluid camera-work, bright, complex scenes, and all kinds of really rare location shooting in railroad yards (and on top of railroad cars). It's fun in its own way, but the two main male characters are so happy and glib they seem weirdly dated.

But then the first twist comes into play--and the title gives an idea there (though it shouldn't be plural, I would think). Also, remember this is a pre-code film so it plays openly with things like adultery in a way that wouldn't happen starting in 1934, three years later.

Now don't get the idea that things get too steamed up here. It's still a depression era big studio romance and it isn't going to take actual chances morally. Or aesthetically. The leading woman is a very young Mary Astor and she's terrific, more naturalistic than the men (neither of whom is well known). The male actor of growing fame (or future fame, largely) is James Cagney, and his role is very very limited, but familiar. He has an edgy intensity that is startling--and he can dance, too. Briefly. Look for Joan Blondell, as well, and though she was in endless films (50 of them just in the 1930s) she's always perky and alive.

The movie never quite rises above its plain approach and this is appropriate because it makes it possible for the movie to talk about what might go wrong between very regular people in a case of one man hitting on the other's wife. It is always rather open and accessible in its own way, you might even say modern in the way it's filmed. Director William Wellman isn't always appreciated on the highest level, but he had an unaffected touch, less art and more humanity, than some other more famous directors, and it's in full force here, easy to like.

The movie also surprised me with its effects and its high drama toward the end. I won't say more, but the rain just won't stop. Great atmosphere, lots of night shooting in the rain, and a scary climax, visually (not so compelling dramatically, I'm afraid). Great fun!

So why isn't this better than it is? One is a script that is a bit awkward or forced at times, both in the dialog and in the forced melodrama. The other is some acting (by the two men--Grant Withers and Regis Toomey) that is just weak. And the situations are highly emotional and demanding. This is another of Wellman's traits, unfortunately--even in his acclaimed and astonishing "Wings" from 1927 there is a feeling of some kind of acting and writing stiffness that brings down an otherwise brilliant kind of production.

Should you see this? If you like early talkies, yes. If you want a tight story with intelligence and depth, I'm not so sure. Enter forewarned. I liked it, I did, but I partly just got, uh, swept away by the way it was shot. And the common DVD transfer from film is first rate, clean and clear!

This film stars Grant Withers as railroad worker Bill White who becomes enamored of the wife (Mary Astor) of his close friend Jack (Regis Toomey). Both men are railroad workers, and prior to coming home to live with Jack and his wife, Bill has been romancing a tough waitress (Joan Blondell) among others, getting drunk every night to the point of almost losing his job, and finally gets ejected from his rooming house for his rowdiness. Specifically Bill ran some bathwater, passed out drunk, and the bath overflowed. At Jack's house Bill finds the kind of home he's never had, and he and Jack's wife, Lily, fall in love, but due to their mutual loyalty to Jack, do nothing about it. However, Jack does find out about how the two feel about one another and he and Bill have it out one night on the train in what turns out to be a very bad place for a fist fight. Grant Withers never made it as a leading man, and it is interesting to see him in this film, and also in his previous leading role "Sinner's Holiday", getting upstaged by the dynamic James Cagney, who has a very small role in both movies.

The story is not that original, but the gritty depression era work conditions of the rail yards and the dusty cafés juxtaposed with Jack and Lily's quaint little home and lush little garden make for great imagery. Then there's that tough precode attitude that is in its infancy over at Warner Brothers at this time. This all makes the film interesting beyond the basic paint-by-numbers plot and therefore worth a look.