Amor por Telefone

I've Got Your Number (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Extremely entertaining gem from Warner about phone repairman Terry Riley (Pat O'Brien) who falls for a beautiful blonde (Joan Blondell) but soon gets caught up in a robbery. I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER turns into a crime picture for the final fifteen-minutes but the rest of the running time is basically a romantic comedy and it's a very good one at that. I think it's pretty clear that the egotistical maniac, fast talking lead character was meant to be played by James Cagney but for whatever reason he didn't do the part so O'Brien stepped in. It seems whenever the Cagney-O'Brien team couldn't do a picture, the studio gave the lead to O'Brien and then they'd bring in either Allen Jenkins (as they did here) or Frank McHugh. O'Brien and Jenkins makes for a very good pair as the two work well off one another and make for a highly entertaining and very fast little picture. The two of them can mix it up extremely well and Jenkins certainly manages to bring a lot of laughs. Blondell is also very good in her role as she's certainly easy on the eye but she also manages to make you believe her in the part. Glenda Farrell has a brief but very funny part as a fake psychic and we also get a good supporting performance by the always entertaining Eugene Palette. There are countless highlights to this film but I think the greatest thing are the various pre-code elements with most of them dealing with sex. O'Brien's character, in today's world, would be called a stalker or sexual harasser because of the way he talks to women, pretty much follows them and forces them to go out with him. It's certainly played for jokes here and it gets plenty of laughs especially one scene early on where two sexually charged women invite him into the house and all sorts of innuendo is thrown around. These pre-code sex jokes are without question hilarious and help keep this film moving at a great pace.

I've Got Your Number casts Pat O'Brien and Joan Blondell as a pair who make their living with the phone company. O'Brien is a line repairmen and Blondell is a switchboard operator. O'Brien is a roughneck, but as Blondell learns he grows on you after a while.

O'Brien gets Blondell a job with Henry O'Neill's brokerage house, but she's suspected of being part of a gang that robs the place of six figures of negotiable securities. It's up to O'Brien and sidekick Allen Jenkins to clear her.

I've Got Your Number is fast and breezy and entertaining. The film has a good pace to it and doesn't let up, My favorite scenes are with Glenda Farrell and a phony spiritualism racket she's got going. Farrell steals the film in her scenes.

You'll also like Eugene Pallette in his scenes as O'Brien's overwrought boss.

One good product from Warner Brothers.

If you know who Warren William, Marian Davies or Archie Mayo were, then there's two facts about you: 1. Your taste in movies is not the same as everyone else and 2. You will quite enjoy this film. If you have no idea who those people are then you're either not over 130 years old or don't spend your time watching pre-code Warner Brothers b-movies......and will probably find this film a bit of a nothing.

Even for those of us who watch these types of movies, this is nothing special but it's got that familiar type of 'nothing special' which some of us have just got used to. Like smoking, you just get into the habit of watching nonsense like this. You watch the same people turn up and do the same stuff in all these types of film, they're almost like your extended dysfunctional family - you feel connected. I've Gone Your Number is not one of the best but it's still an hour and a bit of fun, silliness, suspense, sexism and wisecracks.

Why is it not one of the best?

You will wonder why Pat O'Brien isn't James Cagney because surely he'd do it better. Pat O'Brien could swagger it as well as Cagney but he's very much a second best choice. Although his character is meant to be a lad-about-town, even for 1934, he comes across as quite an unpleasant bully. These days, his 'courtship' of Joan Blondell wouldn't result in a romantic kiss but several months in jail.

Joan Blondell doesn't stretch her acting skills too much in this, indeed she's very much just the passenger. She's always trying to do the right thing but gets taken advantage of - we would rather see her in control, not just a helpless damsel in distress.

Even though she was not well when filming this, she is still the usual sparky, wisecracking, gorgeous and compassionate dame you expect. Whatever she's in, she guarantees to make you smile. Us twelve year old boys who were born in 1920 should be grateful that the censors failed to remove one little scene at the end, that's of Joan leaning over the bed in a very low cut negligee - golly! This scene was actually filmed at Joan's own home - she was recovering from an operation so too Ill to go to the studio. Even having a major operation was no excuse for slacking if you worked for Warner Brothers!

Phone company technicians Pat O'Brien and Allen Jenkins charge into a luxurious apartment populated by lounging ladies. They exchange insults, they install a longer phone cord, they exchange a few suggestive phone cord jokes as they finish the job. O'Brien slaps one of the women on the rear on his way out. –These phone repair guys are fast, tough and too cool for rules.

O'Brien's swagger gets him into trouble with boss Eugene Palette ("I was gonna slap her on the shoulder and she bent over," he says) but in the next scene he's performing a daring rescue atop a burning building and is proclaimed a hero. Ah, the life of a telephone technician: excitement, glamour and adventure—at least according to this picture.

Joan Blondell co-stars as a switchboard operator who gets innocently mixed up in an office swindle. Accused of theft, she takes it on the lam…and guess who sets out to rescue her by tracking down and trapping the real crooks?

Glenda Farrell is hilarious as "Madame Francis, Spiritualist Medium." Using her office phone system to run phony séances, Glenda is busted by our heroes—who then start hanging out with her.

The four stars are all highly entertaining (although Farrell's role is regrettably minor). The plot may be somewhat predictable—O'Brien and Jenkins use their tools and phone skills to track the crooks, tap their calls, learn their plans—but it moves fast and packs plenty of attitude.

It's never especially believable but awfully hard to resist.

With Warners pre-code you win some and lose some but it's only takes an hour or so. The dark flat cinematography, the salty dialogue, the best actors in the world, Blondell in close-ups.

The cad played by O'Brien doesn't deserve her, but he risks his life, mobilizes his networks, beats the odds. Those there to see Blondell can appreciate that O'Brien loves her as much as we do and on the plus side that he is employed and possesses telephonic super-skills. It must be love as Blondell and O'Brien can both rap at Warners-level supersonic speeds. With Jenkins, Pallette, Farrell, et al, this is the murderers row of pre-code.