A Noiva Caiu do Céu

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.

Bette Davis, in her autobiography The Lonely Life, didn't have to much good to say about this film. It's true the critics thought that this film was beneath the talents of Davis and Cagney, but time proves otherwise. Some films just seem to age like a bottle of fine wine which makes this movie play better today than it did when it was first released. So, the story goes, our Bette was doing a lot of tear jerker's and I guess Warners thought it was time for her to take a breather and do a light comedy for a change of pace. What's amazing is that here we have two Acadamy Award winners playing hoke and camp with La Davis spending most of her time falling on top of cactus plants and screaming! The musical score by Max Stiener is just fine and dandy and the funniest part in the film is when Davis deiced she's going to run away from Cagney in an automobile that hardly can run after Henry Davenport locks Cagney up in the town jail. So, she and Davenport get in the car. The car starts down the hill with the song In My Merry Oldsmbile being played and Cagney laughing so bad that you have to laugh with him as the car makes all kinds of noise and sputtering when it finally turns over, and I'm surprised that somehow they didn't find a way for our Bette to fall on top of another cactus plant! Even though Davis said that they really didn't like making this movie, it seems to me, when viewing it, that Davis and Cagney, with the rest of the cast were having a lot of fun making it! You could never remake this film and make it work today. I mean, who would you get to play the roles? Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston? But, on second thought, it would be hilarious to see Aniston falling on top of cactus plants!

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.

Bette Davis and Jimmy Cagney had been teamed once before in "Jimmy the Gent", also a comedy. That picture and this one are two of the relatively rare Bette Davis comedies. Jimmy the Gent was pleasant and fast moving, and featured the two stars relatively early in their career's. Here, they are both at the top of their game, and they elevate the mediocre material into something fast paced, fun, and easy to watch. It's a real pleasure to see two of the screen's greatest stars together. Nothing great, but definitely worth seeing for fans of the stars or of screwball comedies of that era.

When I watch a movie, I like to laugh, and that's why this is my favorite movie of all time.

It's the only pairing of James Cagney and Bette Davis, and the sparks do fly. You might call this a variation on the theme of "It Happened One Night." James Cagney plays a cargo pilot asked to aid in an elopement that would result in a disastrous marriage for an heiress. Her father offers him payment if he delivers her home unmarried. The ending is predictable, but the journey to it is not. Great fun.

Oh, I know there are so many other "important" and wonderful movies out there. I love a lot of them. But rarely has one tickled and surprised me the way this one did.

Let others favor the big famous movies. I'll take this little gem.

I'm surprised that more people haven't recognized its charm.