"blonde crazy" is jimmy cagney's pre-code comedy, and also in my opinion, his first and only successful attempt of being cinematic romanticist before william wellman's "public enemy" catapults him into the smashing icon of misogynistic gangster who smashes grapefruit to a dame's face . it features joan bondell in her
supremacy of beauty and youthful brightness before she descends into the typecasting of wisecracking sassy moll/doll in the warner's 30s gangster genre , especially in the bathtub scene. generally it's a quaint pre-code romantic comedy on the backset of rocketeering gangsterism without too much of profanity.
cagney is a hotel waiter who's enamour of a newly arrived blonde (played by bondell) who is reluctant to appreciate his aggressive courtship. so cagney hooks bondell to be his bussiness partner of larceny to con rich fellow who's blinded by lust. then bondell gets smitten with a suave bourgeois gentleman(played by the young, fresh-faced ray milland) to leave cagney heart-broken. so in the end, how cagney's gonna to court back the dame he truly loves with his un-requited chivalry? it also reflects the anarchistic mindset of the proteriats in the great depression that rascal could be a romanticist of genuine nobility while the gent of idle rich could be rotten inside.
the ending is a surprisingly sweet romantic twist which is expressed effectively in the last 10 mins. (which won't be revelt here) director roy del ruth also makes another flick with cagney and mae clarke in "ladykiller" which steals some "grapefruit chauvinism" from "public enemy"...perhaps cagney's comic and romantic potentiality has been dwarfed by the charismatic brute image he renders so well in "public enemy" but it shows so well in "blonde crazy" with joan bondell here even he lacks every essential attribute as romantic lead, such as looks, grace and the affinity with female audience. instead, he could manage his cagney-kind of romanticism like bogart did in the 40s with lauren bacall.
June 12, 2008
