Blonde Crazy

Bert Harris (James Cagney) is a bellhop at a small town hotel. When a looker (Joan Blondell as Anne Roberts) arrives, he arranges for her employment in the housekeeping department.

Bert is a schemer who is loose with the truth and has a love of the ladies. He says, "The world owes me a living." Despite the fact Bert is "not a collar ad", Anne is intrigued by his persona. But she is a good girl, immune to his advances. Still, they become partners and use a small-time frame to finance their move to a larger city.

Being a fan of films about grifting, I really enjoy this film, which includes multiple examples of the con. The stakes get higher as the story continues. One con is reminiscent of "The Sting".

It is also fun to watch pre-Code films, with their peculiar characteristics and their vernacular. Bert, though a criminal, displays an odd code of ethics that is central to the story, though unacceptable by Hays' standards.

Cagney displays his usual bluster and bravado. Blondell is charming. Watch for the very young Ray Milland.

Pre-Coder starring James Cagney as a hotel bellboy with a knack for conning people who falls for Joan Blondell and gets more than his fair share of trouble for it. Mixed bag but enjoyable enough. Jimmy's the main reason to recommend this one. He's delightfully cocky and energizes every scene. The way he moves and talks throughout the picture is fascinating to watch. He was still relatively new to movies but you would never know it by how confident his performance is here. Starts out like a comedy but turns more serious when Louis Calhern and Ray Milland enter the picture. It's not quite as enjoyable from that point on.

"Blonde Crazy" was one of the first films James Cagney made after becoming a big star. The plot is pretty straightforward but Cagney and Joan Blondell push this film well above being average with their on-screen chemistry. They play a couple of hustlers who circulate amongst the more wealthy clientèle in various hotels. At one stage, both the leads are on the receiving end of a notorious card shark who steals their ill gotten gains. The way Cagney and Blondell exact their revenge is brilliant! Things get a bit more complicated between the two leads in the latter half of the film. Very entertaining.

This is one of those very early talkie/precodes that I wish would come out on DVD. At this point in its history - 1931 - Warner Bros. was the mass producer of urban dramas and films that realistically portrayed the depression. Some of the films Warner made during this time were quite forgettable, and others had something special. This film is one of those special efforts, largely due to the acting skills of Joan Blondell and the great James Cagney and the on-screen chemistry they had. Cagney's character (Bert Harris) starts out as a bellboy in a midwestern hotel who is instantly attracted to Joan Blondell's character (Anne Roberts) when she applies for a job as a hotel maid. Bert wants a career as a confidence man and talks Anne into going into business with him as a partner. They work their way up from that small midwestern town into larger stakes in New York. Along the way Cagney runs into someone who ends up taking him instead of vice versa, Dan Barker, played by Louis Calhern. Calhern always excelled at playing the part of a slippery type, and his performance here is no exception. After settling the score with Dan, Anne wants out of the racket so she can marry a nice young man she has met along the way, and this seems like the end of the film. However, there is one final twist at the end that reunites Anne and Bert in a way that is totally unexpected.

Even though this film was made after Cagney's star-making role in "Public Enemy", he still doesn't have his gangster/wise guy personna down yet. That makes one of the unexpected pleasures of the film seeing how he is still finding his way as far as his trademark gestures go in his later roles. Highly recommended.

How would you like to go to a hotel and find out James Cagney is the #1 bell-hop, and Joan Blondell is your blond chamber-maid? That's where we start in "Blonde Crazy", and things get wild in a hurry. Cagney plays con-man Bert Harris, and he falls hard for the new chamber-maid, Ann Roberts, played by Joan Blondell. Peggy, another cute chambermaid, warns Ann to stay away from Bert. Ann says, "He can't be interested in me, I'm not important and I have no money." Peggy shoots back, "Oh yeah ... maybe you've got something else he wants." Bert makes a pass at Ann, and get his face slapped hard. When he next sees her he says, "I'm so stuck on you, I wouldn't mind getting slugged by you every day." Ann says, "Oh yeah," smiles, and hauls off and hits him again. Hold on, she's just warming up. Middle aged Guy Kibbee falls hard for Ann, and asks Bert, "What do you know about the blond chambermaid?" Bert smiles and sells the chump a bottle of booze at triple the price, knowing Kibbee will pay because he's been told, "It's the only stuff the blond chamber-maid drinks." After Ann and Bert rip off Kibbee big time, they head for the city and tangle with super chisler "Dapper Dan Barker", played to the hilt by Louis Calhern. Things get rough, with the con-artists ripping off one another, and thumbing their noses at the sap whose been taken at clean-out time.

The dialogue is outrageous, and Ann wallops Bert a few more times along the way. Blondell slaps Cagney when he's bad, and slaps him when he's good, only a little softer then and with a big smile, just to let him know she still loves him. At one point Bert starts to walk in on Ann when she's in the tub. She shrieks and yells, "Hey, what's the big idea? I'm taking a bath." To which he cracks, "Oh yeah ... move over!" This is a great film. The only problem is that the ending is way to somber and dark in comparison to the breezy, good-natured tempo of the rest of the film. But this is one you've got to see. Blondell and Cagney are wonderful together.