Madame poursuit Monsieur

Woman Chases Man (1937)

** (out of 4)

Screwball comedy has a father (Charles Winninger) trying to get $100,000 from his son (Joel McCrea) but when the son refuses the father hires a young woman (Miriam Hopkins) to try and lure it from him. This is a rather strange film because it doesn't work as a comedy at all. In fact, I don't recall laughing a single time but the two leads keep things moving along and makes for a great couple but it's a shame the screenplay doesn't do them justice. McCrea comes off a tad bit too straight-forward but this works well against the more free-spirited Hopkins who is incredibly charming in her role. The supporting cast doesn't add too much and the ending is very predictable but fans of the two stars might be interested.

Woman (Miriam Hopkins as Virginia) chases Man (Joel McCrea as Kenneth) for father (Charles Winninger as B.J.). Woman wants to get Man to invest some of deceased mother's money in father's business venture; but, father is notorious for losing money on hair-brained schemes. Little does anyone know, but real evil schemers are posing as Man's best friends in order to steal his fortune...

The production looks engaging, but the story fails to engage. The players don't play drunk well. Notable as Broderick Crawford's first appearance - as gopher "Hunk"; other than running errands, Mr. Crawford gets pinned to the floor by Mr. McCrea.

*** Woman Chases Man (4/28/37) John G. Blystone ~ Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Charles Winninger, Broderick Crawford

Only faithful fans of MIRIAM HOPKINS or JOEL McCREA could possibly want to sit through this screwball comedy full of impossible situations and banal dialog.

Fast talking Hopkins is an architect (c'mon, that's what it says) full of pep talk when she schemes her way into CHARLES WINNINGER's office to sell him on her wonderful housing designs. (How many times has Winninger played a daffy millionaire in '30s endless parade of screwball comedies???).

He admits the plans look great--but the hitch is he's no longer a millionaire having lost all his money on crazy schemes. But wait. He's got a son (JOEL McCREA), more sensible than him who's got lots of money. All it's going to take is for someone (like Miriam maybe?) to separate him from it so they can go ahead with her plans to make Hopkins and Winninger rich.

That's about it for starters. But it gets even sillier once Winninger takes her to his home (after she's fainted a couple of times because the poor thing hasn't eaten in 49 hours). And once ERIC RHODES, BRODERICK CRAWFORD and ELLA LOGAN enter the scene, it gets sillier and more improbable with each dubious remark.

Hopkins is photographed attractively and puts a lot of spirit into playing a ditsy architect, but it's obvious from the start that this is not going to go down as one of the best screwball comedies of the '30s--not by a long stretch.

Winninger seems to be doing a warm-up for his other millionaire role in HARD TO GET ('38), again involved with an architect (DICK POWELL) and the scatterbrained daughter (OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND) who wants to get revenge on Powell for his mistreatment of her. He spent a lot of time in the '30s and '40s playing daffy millionaires who ruled over nutsy, filthy rich households.

Summing up: Not worth a peek.

Charming screwball farce played by two of the greatest performers of the 1930s, Miriam Hopkins and Joel Mcrea, with a terrific supporting cast and a director with a fine sense of the absurd.

Hopkins, who suffered no fools and hurt her own career by it, loved working with McCrea and they made a quick series of five films together 1934-1937, all fairly successful at the box office and all great movies well worth viewing, with this one being the last. McCrea was moving into the greatest period of his career, 1937-1946, a time when nearly all his films were big hits. Late in life he credited Ginger Rogers and Barbara Stanwyck as the greatest actresses he worked with in his career, but he also spoke very highly of Hopkins and credited her with helping his career besides being a great screen partner. His wife Frances Dee was very popular with other actresses and the McCrea ranch was the locale for many script readings and scene preps, with Rogers, Stanwyck, Bette Davis and Hepburn being regular visitors.

In this movie, Hopkins is so caught up by the shenanigans in the scene in the tree that she briefly loses her polished acting voice and you can clearly hear her native Savannah, Georgia drawl. And no wonder - it's hilarious!

At the very beginning of this film, Nina Tennyson (Leona Maricle) tells lover Henrie Saffron (Erik Rhodes) that she is going to marry millionaire Kenneth Nolan (Joel McCrea) "so you and I can live happily ever afterwards." She explains that she is going to marry Nolan for his money and then leave him. Henrie say, "Holy Mackerel, what a way to make a living." "Do you know any other way to make a living," she wisecracks.

Besides his fiancé, Nolan's father, B.J. Nolan (Charles Winninger) is also after his money. He has started a suburban housing community called "Nolan Heights" and creditors are going to ruin him if his son doesn't invest in the project. His son has specifically been ordered in his mother's will, not to invest in his father's hair-brained schemes. Thus both father and son are in trouble.

At this moment, Virginia Travis (Mariam Hopkins) shows up looking for a job as an architect for Nolan's "Nolan Heights" housing project. She gives a wild and hilarious introductory speech:

"I know what you're thinking that I'm a girl. Yes, Mr. Nolan, but I have a man's courage, a man's vision, a man's attack...For seven years, I studied like a man, researched like a man. There is nothing feminine about my mind. Seven year ago I gave up a perfectly nice engagement with a charming, wealthy old man because I chose a practical career. I left him at the church to become an architect and today I'm ready and he's dead. Here I am Mr. Nolan with the key to Nolan Heights. I've found a way to make us both rich. I can make you a fortune. Why I have a million dollars right here in my hand."

At this point, she faints dead away. A doctor is called and he explains that she fainted due to hunger. She hadn't eaten in 48 hours. "49 hours," Virginia corrects him, coming out of her faint.

This is a very sweet movie where all the main characters are both con-artists and lovers.

I think Mariam Hopkins is brilliant in her performance and deserved an academy award. Unlike Katherine Hepburn, who appears loving, but feather-brained, in the popular screwball comedy, "Bringing Up Baby (1939), Hopkins manages to be both loving and smart.

Everybody is flawed and a little bit of a screwball in this comedy. That makes it a very wise comedy, indeed.