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Enjoyable screwball comedy with Bette Davis and James Cagney, helped out by a great supporting cast that includes Eugene Palette, Jack Carson, George Tobias, William Frawley, Harry Davenport, and many others. WB movies back in the day were more often than not defined by their supporting players. They had a premium stable of actors to choose from and many times they're more enjoyable to watch than the leads.

Davis has a lot of fun with this role and, while her comedic talents were always so-so, she shines here. This is also one of the movies where she looks prettiest and curviest. One dress in particular fits her just right.

The movie isn't perfect. It drags a bit more than a screwball comedy should. Davis and Cagney, while having nice comedic timing, don't really have much romantic chemistry. So the inevitable conclusion to a film like this might be a bit hard for some to buy. Still, I recommend it to any Bette Davis or James Cagney fan. Also to any fan of WB films from the 1930s and 40s.

Sure it had been done once or twice before, and it was done a dozen times following... but this one is a classic on merit alone.

Davis and Cagney were the top two Warner's actors at the time and had fought their own respective legal battles with the studio in the years prior, as well as being very good friends.

This film catches them at the tops of their game, just being allowed to be silly and have fun in a movie no one really expected much out of.

The formula works and though the pacing isn't the best, hang-in because it's worth it.

Saturday afternoon popcorn film.

This is a pretty obvious take on "It Happened One Night" except in a post gangster pre war era, narrow and short lived as that era was.

Joan Winfield (Bette Davis) is a spoiled heiress who is about to elope and marry bandleader Allen Brice (Jack Carson) after having known him for only four days. They are going to fly to Las Vegas on Steve Collins' (James Cagney's) plane, if the finance company doesn't repossess the plane first. As such, Joan's wealthy father (Eugene Pallette), who hates Brice, agrees to pay Collins the money he needs to keep the finance company at bay if Collins delivers Joan to Amarillo unmarried. Collins manages to take off with Joan and without Allen Brice, but the plane crashes in the desert when the engine stalls. Fortunately, they are near an almost abandoned mining town. Complications ensue, one of which being that nobody knows where they are.

This is definitely an odd one - a definite B effort from Warner Brothers with their two biggest A list stars of the time. There is so much slapstick that it resembles a Looney Tunes cartoon. I half way expected Davis and Cagney to erupt into a "Duck Season! Rabbit Season!" exchange at some point. And after the pair make it to the abandoned mining town with the lone but friendly inhabitant, the script literally goes in circles for about an hour waiting for the energetic and reinvigorated conclusion.

Anything with Davis and/or Cagney is worth seeing, and maybe that was why Jack Warner didn't put much effort into this one. Because he realized that too.

I quite liked THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D. It's an obvious riff on the screwball structure established by the much superior IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, but Cagney and Davis really make it so much better than it could have been without their personas and chemistry there to liven things up. If you love the Warner Bros. acting stable of this period, then you're in for a good time.

The plot isn't clever or original, but I laughed quite a lot. Considering how hard it is to get me to laugh aloud when watching a movie, that alone makes this an achievement.

I can see why some people who admire the actor's dramas might complain. Gone with the Wind, it ain't. But it wasn't trying to be, and you do get a host of Hollywood legends, all in top form, doing exactly what they did best.

Airplane lovers will also appreciate the potpourri of period light passenger aircraft, and the scenery and sets are top notch.

The chemistry between Cagney and Davis is great, there's no scene stealing and it's just plain fun to watch. It's kind of sad to hear the treatment it received at the time from both the actors and critics. I wish they'd made ten more. Light-hearted and easy on the soul. One of my all time favorites.

Side note: I met Bette Davis in a store in Westport, CT and she quizzed me about a reversible blender we were both looking at. I was picking one up for my friend Mary. She was very nice--and smoking of course.