Un danger public

Jean Arthur was a marvelous movie comedienne. She was one of the very best actresses at comedy. But, as with any master of the craft, her star's brightness in any film depended a great deal on what she had to work with. That included the script and related material, and the rest of the cast and the film's direction. Most importantly, she needed the right co-star who would help her star shine brightly.

Unfortunately, too much is missing from "Public Menace" to make it a notable or even very enjoyable film. And, it's not the craziness of the plot. Far out plots often can be very good vehicles for great comedy. In this case, the goofy plot might have been OK if it had a great script. But, the script here is terribly weak. How many times do we have to see Red Foster (played by George Murphy), knock on doors trying to sell newspaper subscriptions? No belly laughs there. Not even a chuckle the first time. It drags at times to near boredom.

Combine the poor script with a bad match of a co-star, and a film is sure to flop - or founder, at best. I don't know if Murphy was a wrong match or if it was just a very lackluster performance of a poorly written role. But Jean Arthur as Cassie Nicholls can't raise this film to more than a fizzle. Had her part been better written, it would have helped tremendously.

The screenplay is devoid of witty lines and clever humor. There are no funny scenes. What is there for one to laugh at in this supposed comedy? I noticed only one witty comment in all of this film's dialog. The news editor is yelling out orders to his reporter pool, and one guy says something. The editor gets a dig in at the prominent gossip columnist Walter Winchell when he says "I don't want a Winchell."

I did see one thing that caught my interest that I don't recall ever having seen in a movie before. Murphy's character in on board a cabin cruiser with a flag flying from it that reads "PRESS." The boat is sailing out to meet the inbound Lancaster passenger ship. The several reporters step from the deck of their press boat into a supply door of the ship.

This is not one of Arthur's good films, and it's far from some of her great comedy smashes. Nor is it a good film for George Murphy. Sometimes, the reason so few people may have seen a film before is because it's not that good. Sometimes the reason a film may only rarely be shown on late night TV is because it's not very good. I can understand why this movie is not well known.

This is an early Columbia Pictures film that has the original, very crude Columbia logo at the start. The only lines written for laughs are over Arthur's job as the manicurist, and they won't give most even a chuckle. She plays Cassie Nicholls and Douglass Dumbrille plays Mario Tonelli.

Mario Tonelli, "You know, beauty and brains don't usually go together." Cassie Nicholls, "Well, you have to know how to pick your parents."

Mario Tonelli, "That's a pretty good job, too. You only nicked me a couple of times." Cassie Nicholls, "I always brand my clients, so they won't forget me."

Mario Tonelli, "A lot of things have happened since the last time you gave my nails the once over, sister." Cassie Nicholls, "Did you like the way I did them?" Tonelli, "Well, the scars have all healed. Give 'em another whirl, will ya?" Cassie, "Sure. I'll try not to nick you this time."

Reporter George Murphy is covering a liner's docking whe Jean Arthur offers him a great story about a suicide. Her price is he marry her so she can enter the country. It turns out to be a phony, so Murphy is fired and the two begin an erratic hike towards divorce, hampered by a total lack of money.

There are certainly enough grace notes in this movie to keep it very watchable through the end, including gangster Douglas Dumbrille in a shoot-out with the cops in a newspaper office while the reporters write the story from under their desk. The script also has a goodly number of too-cute moments, starting with the outrageous statement that Miss Arthur is a foreigner; I know that Plattsburgh is out of the way unless you're planning a land invasion from Canada, but still...

Even so, the always charming eccentricity of Miss Arthur overcomes the grouchiness of Murphy in this watchable screwball comedy.

Thanks to TCM, I discovered this movie the other night. What a treat: a fine cast with wonderful timing, a clever plot, and lots of zippy dialog. The producers managed to take what could have been a string of movie clichés and elevated them to a consistently rewarding comedy/drama. Besides that, there are loads of snappy old cars and a couple of chase sequences. It's short and sweet; be sure to catch it when you can.

Also, be sure to catch the Dillinger reference: the gangster wants the news hounds to take his picture with his arms around the cop that is guarding him. The cop refuses, saying that he "saw another arms-around picture lately." That refers to the infamous picture of Dillinger posing with Indiana cops that turned into a P.R. nightmare for them.

The Public Menace (1935)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland comedy from Columbia has a Greek woman (Jean Arthur) meeting a reporter (George Murphy) on an ocean liner and asking him to marry her so that she can get off the boat. The reporter agrees but only because she gives him a fake tip on a gangster (Douglass Dumbrille), which causes him to get fired from his job. Now married and with no job, the reporter does his best to bring down the gangster and his "wife" wants to help. For just a 72-minute movie there's quite a bit going on in this film but sadly none of it is all that entertaining. This was clearly just meant to be a programmer, something to put on the lower half of a double bill, because there's really not much working it in. Director Erle C. Kenton could certainly handle material like this but he's really not given too much to work with. The screenplay doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy with some gang activity put in or if it wants to be a gangster picture with some laughs. The entire set-up is just beyond bizarre and everything dealing with the marriage seems forced. This is especially true early on as the couple tries to save enough money so they can get a divorce but of course something happens. I thought Arthur was good in her role but to be honest she was much too good to be appearing in something like this. Murphy pretty much sleepwalks through his part and has very little chemistry with the lead. Dumbrille isn't the person you'd select for a gangster but he isn't too bad. THE PUBLIC MENACE isn't a horrible film but it's quite pointless.

I'll have to watch it a few more times to be sure but I think I love this movie.

Here's what's to love:

-GREAT screwball comedy. Jean Arthur is her delightful self, really well-cast, she perfectly toes the line between funny and ditzy that can be difficult for a leading lady to do in a newspaper-crime story like this one. She uses her whole vocal range, but in a free-spirited character who never gets as worked up about things as everyone else, she remains calm and completely watchable, not to mention likable. Without her this movie would have been a pretty decent, well-conceived newspaper-crime comedy, but she makes it a screwball comedy, she has enough gusto to open up the romance angle, without overdoing it, so that it's a film you can not only enjoy, but really adore.

-A pretty tight plot, in a genre where this is often lacking. As of press time I've only watched it once, but it seemed actually pretty smart the first time through. Not like Adventure In Manhattan, which was just a little too much departure from reality to really get into, this starts off looking like your typical overblown, hammy newspaper man-in-search-of-story plot, but then it dips into an amusing lull wherein you keep expecting somebody's master plan to be revealed, but though the dialog is in places as sharp as The Front Page or His Girl Friday, it isn't one character pulling all the strings, and the plot is actually a little more believable, I feel, because it unfolds by a series of fairly natural accidents.

-George Murphy. I didn't think he'd win the film any points with me, given that I don't know him at all really, but he kept it together very well as a newspaper reporter who doesn't want to get involved with a woman(whenever Cary Grant's characters resorted to this I always felt like it was its own punchline, but from this average-looking smart alec, you actually believe it). He's wise not to try to steal the scene from the glib and giggly Arthur, but there were a couple places where, given Arthur's irresistibility, I felt he could have been a little more hilarious when playing his various changes of heart. But overall, I think he did a really solid job that doesn't leave me wishing another actor had played it, as I sometimes (often) do.