The Public Menace

Reporter George Murphy is covering a liner's docking whe Jean Arthur offers him a great story about a suicide. Her price is he marry her so she can enter the country. It turns out to be a phony, so Murphy is fired and the two begin an erratic hike towards divorce, hampered by a total lack of money.

There are certainly enough grace notes in this movie to keep it very watchable through the end, including gangster Douglas Dumbrille in a shoot-out with the cops in a newspaper office while the reporters write the story from under their desk. The script also has a goodly number of too-cute moments, starting with the outrageous statement that Miss Arthur is a foreigner; I know that Plattsburgh is out of the way unless you're planning a land invasion from Canada, but still...

Even so, the always charming eccentricity of Miss Arthur overcomes the grouchiness of Murphy in this watchable screwball comedy.