Le vantard

I didn't find this to be a hilarious comedy, but it's entertaining and has some good performances. Cagney of course is excellent, and Marie Wilson is particularly charming as the naive mother of Happy, Hollywood's newborn sensation. The dialogue is extremely fast (for a challenge, try keeping up with it with your closed-captioning on.) The plot is perhaps a bit silly by today's standards, but good performances make this a worthwhile film. Look out for "in-jokes" about the movie industry, a future American president in a small role, and a lot of trumpets (or are they trombones?) Personally this film never made me laugh out loud, but it made me smile a lot.

James Cagney and Pat O'Brien made their second of two films adapted from Broadway plays, the first being Ceiling Zero. Boy Meets Girl, written by the husband and wife team of Samuel and Bella Spewack ran for 664 performances and was directed on Broadway by the great George Abbott.

It would have been nice had Warner Brothers secured the services of Mr. Abbott to direct this film version. But even without his touch Boy Meets Girl nicely adapts from the stage to the screen. The parts of Benson and Law, based loosely on the writing team of Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht, fit Cagney and O'Brien very well indeed.

I've always been of the opinion though it is the strong performances of the supporting cast that make this film. Dick Foran showed what a really good sport he was in satirizing himself essentially. At the time Boy Meets Girl was made, Foran was Warner Brothers B picture singing cowboy star. A whole lot of other players would never have done what Foran did. Too bad they didn't give him a song to sing in this though.

But the performance I really like is that of Ralph Bellamy, the harassed studio executive who is being driven to his wit's end by the antics of Cagney and O'Brien. Forget The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, or even Sunrise at Campobello, this to me is Ralph Bellamy's career role. What makes it work is that Bellamy does play it so seriously against Cagney and O'Brien.

Frank McHugh, Marie Wilson, and Bruce Lester are involved in this also. And very prominently featured is the 40th President of the United States in one of the first roles that brought him some attention as a radio announcer. Since that's what Ronald Reagan was before coming to Hollywood, no strain here on any acting ability. Still he has some good moments as Cagney hatches a plot that does disrupt his broadcast.

Do you ever think Ralph Bellamy finally did cure all the problems that 'Young England' was facing?

Prankster screenwriters Robert Law (James Cagney) and J.C. Benson (Pat O'Brien) are struggling with a script. Robert is tired of writing trash. Western star Larry Toms is tired of the two writers. They pitch the standard to producer C.F. Friday. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. Flighty pregnant waitress Susie Seabrook faints in Friday's office. The boys take on the job of being the baby's Godfathers and come up with a new idea for the cowboy movie.

The screwball comedy from the writing duo has some good humor. At least, they bring plenty of energy and that's enough to raise the comedic level. I like that they randomly lead a revolt of the native Indian actors. The rest is less fun. I do like the dimwitted Susie sometimes. I don't care that much about any of the characters. The movie should really center on the two writers rather be scattered around the various characters. Overall, there are a few little chuckles in this screwball comedy.

Gotta' credit Warner Bros. with a lot of guts for taking its top gangster star, James Cagney, and stiffly heroic Pat O'Brien and teaming them as a pair of screen writing con artists in a zany farce. But thanks to the wordplay of Sam and Bella Spewack, who adapted "Boy Meets Girl" from their Broadway hit, it works beautifully. And often hilariously. The set-up is simple. Challenged to come up with a script for sputtering cowboy star Dick Foran, Cagney and O'Brien are at wits' (or more like halfwits') end until commissary waitress Marie Wilson collapses while serving lunch. Seems she's about to have a baby (sans husband, a surprise given the strength of the Hays Office in 1938 although her slim figure suggests at least some degree of censorship.) The plucky screenwriters build a storyline around the baby who's born shortly thereafter and goes on to become an 8-month old superstar, eclipsing the increasingly furious Foran. There's also Ralph Bellamy as a pretentious mini-mogul, Bruce Lester as a British extra who's not what he seems, Ronald Reagan in a brief bit as a radio announcer, pre-Blondie Penny Singleton seen even more briefly as a manicurist, a squad of angry rock-throwing Indians and a relay team of slide trombonists to add to the comic confusion. All-in-all, a very entertaining movie -- and when Cagney illustrates a story point with an impromptu tap dance, you get a preview of the "Yankee Doodle" dandy he'll play five years later.

Impressively ludicrous and hyperactive Hollywood self-spoof, Cagney and O'Brien play a pair of screenwriters sponging from a studio too free with its money. Double-talk turns to triple-talk as they do battle with various opposing forces (a hapless cowboy star, a college-educated producer, an effete English extra and even Ronald Reagan) to control a baby-star whose career they created while it was still in the womb; they are only defeated by the Eternal Power of Love as Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Finds Girl Again. Cagney, a genius who always struggled to play anyone who remotely resembled a normal human being, and O'Brien speak so fast that even native speakers of English struggle to follow. They would have given the Marx Brothers a run for their manic money.

Yet the greatest lines (and facial expressions) are reserved for Ralph Bellamy, on top form as the dopey producer (presumably a caricature of some well-known figure). Only Bellamy could spin comic gold from a line like "Good Gad, you've been drinking my milk." "It's 1938" says O'Brien. "I know that," replies Bellamy, "but not everyone's an intellectual."