Other Men's Women

A fast-paced tale of love, action and sacrifice - the kind of Hollywood staple they don't make anymore. More than a little melodramatic and very much a period piece, the film is worth watching most of all for some stunning visual effects and an absolutely marvelous (supporting) performance by Joan Blondell in the kind of role that suited her perfectly: a wisecracking, hash-slinging dame - a floozy who thinks she's looking for love, but is only out for a good time. Mary Astor is convincing in the lead role, but Joan steals the show.

A curiously ambiguous ending might make you wonder what point the film was trying to make about morality. Be assured that after the Code was in effect, this picture would have ended differently.

The plot is pure hokum, so it's the extras that "make" the movie: The backdrop of trains and trainyards, Joan Blondell in an extraneous role as a saucy waitress, James Cagney in an early supporting part (he has a nice bit on top of a moving train, and also does some dancing), J. Farrell MacDonald helping plant peas by making holes in the dirt with his peg leg, cool bridge and train miniatures, etc. Approach with modest expectations

Grand film, has all the elements of a greek tragedy with a socko ending. And all ends honorably. A definite 10. Story plot, character development and even the scenery. From a dance-hall to the railroad yards to a bridge under siege by flood. And Jimmy Cagney dances! How could you go wrong. Dialogue a bit 'racy' in spots.

I had never heard of this movie but the only reason i watched it was because of James Cagney. Cagney had a pretty small part but i didn't mind. This movie stars Grant Withers and Regis Toomey as best friends who work as railroad conductors and Toomey is married to Mary Astor. Withers is dating Joan Blondell but he falls in love with Mary Astor instead. Withers is staying at Toomey's house but he leaves because he doesn't want to hurt Toomey. Toomey finds out why he left and they get in a fight on the train and cause an accident. After the accident they find Toomey is blind and then this big storm comes. I don't wont to spoil the ending because you can find it out for yourself. Both Withers and Toomey are good and so is Mary Astor and Joan Blondell.

I have no doubt that when William Wellman directed James Cagney in Other Men's Women he had him filed for future reference and then used him so successfully in The Public Enemy. Cagney and Joan Blondell in secondary parts outshine the leads of Grant Withers, Mary Astor, and Regis Toomey in this working man's love triangle film.

Not that the leads give bad performances, but charisma can't be kept down. Toomey is a railroad worker married to Astor and one night he brings an inebriated Grant Withers home to sleep it off. Turns out that Withers and Astor knew each other back in the day and before long the love sparks start going off.

Around this time Grant Withers was married to Loretta Young ever so briefly, but in Young's Catholic tradition, the marriage was annulled due to his real life drinking and carousing. Withers's excesses led his career on a downward spiral and he took work where he got it and in mostly lower grade films until his suicide in 1959. John Wayne tried to use him in films when he could. Withers would appear in support of James Cagney in 1954 in Run for Cover as a western outlaw leader.

Toomey was a very competent character actor, but just not lead material. Still he does well and in a few years he'd be supporting James Cagney in G-Men. Mary Astor is fine, but far from Brigid O'Shaughnessy, you'd never know it was the same actress.

Cagney as a friend to both Withers and Toomey and Blondell in an early gem of a part as a wisecracking waitress, show exactly why they would rise to the top of the Warner Brothers pecking order.

William Wellman did some very nice location photography in and around the railroad yards, very similar in fact to that done by John Frankenheimer in The Train. And Wellman got good performances from his cast.

But I'm sure he had no doubt as to who a future star was.