He Was Her Man

Something is missing from this film, and that something is the electricity that Blondell and Cagney had in all of their joint projects up to this time, the beginning of the enforcement of the production code.

James Cagney plays a Flicker Hayes, a safe-cracker who turns in his old gang to the police after they recruit him for a new job right after he gets out of prison. You see, Flicker knows his gang let him take the rap alone and he's looking for payback. However, before he turns them in he takes a large pre-payment from them in cash for the upcoming job which he knows will never happen. Flicker is now on the run as the members of the gang that did not get arrested have a hit out on him. While in San Francisco he runs into Rose Lawrence (Joan Blondell), a penniless woman on her way to marry a fisherman. Cagney has both romantic interest in and sympathy for Rose right from the start. He feeds her then escorts her and pays her way to the town where her fiancé is waiting. The most confusing part of the story is - why would Nick the fisherman decide to marry a prostitute he barely knows (that is the insinuation of what Rose's profession was) then - knowing she is penniless, leave her to find her own way to him? This part of the story probably had some aspect that caused it to be left on the cutting room floor thanks to the censors.

Once at Nick's house, both Flicker and Rose have trouble keeping both their pasts and their passions at bay. Plus a mysterious rancher shows up who wants to do some recreational fishing and also winds up a guest at Nick's house - there is no hotel in the small town.

Although the film is worth a look, don't look for the smart remarks and innuendos that previous Cagney/Blondell films are filled with. The hard edges of their past precodes are as hidden as Cagney's upper lip is under the odd mustache he sports throughout this film.

A young San Francisco woman, who's lived rough, is torn between the Portuguese fisherman she admires & the petty criminal she adores.

HE WAS HER MAN is a particularly good example of the sort of crime drama which Warner Bros. did so well in the early 1930's. Intelligent romantic dialogue and gentle humor, in addition to some very fine performances, are all ingredients which make this film a solid success - even though it is nearly forgotten now. This picture was produced just before the implementation of the Production Code and the climax, while completely appropriate, will surprise some viewers.

Jimmy Cagney is entirely irrepressible, strutting through each scene like a banty rooster, shouting attention to himself without ever having to raise his voice. As a fellow on the lam from vicious mobsters who want him dead, Cagney plays a character not in control of his own circumstances - a rarity for him, which makes him at once more vulnerable and more human. Joan Blondell nicely underplays her part as the tough luck lady he befriends, avoiding any of the sass & sizzle from her comedic films which would be out of place here.

At the other end of the spectrum from the grim roles with which he would become associated, Victor Jory is excellent as the quiet, decent fisherman who deeply loves Blondell. His performance is one of the major assets of the film.

Bradley Page, Russell Hopton, Harold Huber & Ralf Harolde play various Manhattan crooks & killers, with Frank Craven especially good as a genial, albeit sinister, shadow. Solid support is given by Sarah Padden as Jory's exuberant old-world mother & John Qualen as the local delivery man.

Outdoor location shooting took place around Monterey, California. While the film's setting, the seaside village of Santa Avila, is completely fictional, the Monterey Bay area has long enjoyed a strong Portuguese contingent as part of its fishing industry.

James Cagney is one of the ten greatest actors of all time. Joan Blondell is absolutely beautiful. There are several great character actors in here including Harold Huber as a standout. It is not a great movie, but it is a real movie. It was released shortly before the production code ended a great deal of artistic freedom.

There's an effortless polish to this Cagney Blondell team up unlike most of their many couplings fused with brash give an take. More subdued and perhaps worn out from life they project a restrained melancholy that informs this moody overachiever that deviates from the era's formula.

Flicker Hayes (Cagney) takes it on the lam after he sets up two of his associates during a heist. A cop is killed and one of the crooks gets the chair for it. The other puts a contract out on Hayes head who has hooked up with mail order bride Rose (Blondel) in Frisco and follows her to a sleepy fishing village in order to lay low as well as deal with his conflicted feelings about Rose. Hit men in the mean time have been dispatched to the village.

Well edited with imaginative composition director Lloyd Bacon does an excellent balancing act of keeping He was Her Man's outcome masked until the very end. Subtly and with great economy he establishes the relationship between Flicker and Rose then heightens the drama and tension by introducing a beyond decent hard working sensitive groom to be increasing the pressure on Rose.

Cagney has the usual jaunty confidence but this time withdrawn from throwing punches and spraying lead to back it up. Victor Jory's sensitive understanding fisherman gives crucial weight to the film's ability to sustain itself by being a formidable opponent to Flicker. It is Blondell though amid her predicament without resorting to hysteria in conveying a lugubrious despair along with Bacon's tempered approach that gives He was Her Man a touch of morose beauty.

Although James Cagney once again appears as a disreputable underworld figure, there is in this portrayal no strutting, twitching, snapping, or pushing people around. As a double-crosser on the run from his former cohorts, he maintains an extremely low profile - yet the menace he represents surfaces in a smirk here, a sly smile there, a barely poised but ever watchful presence with the potential for violence - perhaps the quietest Cagney criminal you will ever see.

Joan Blondell also plays a familiar type, the down-on-her-luck girl who will trade her charms for money, but here, too, the approach to the part is much more subdued than what we find in her wisecracking gold-digger roles. World-weary, somber, reflective, resigned: there is no contradiction in her projecting a streetwise yet vulnerable woman who, though still young, has seen too much of life.

If the two stars don't exactly set off sparks (as each did playing opposite others), they give solid, honest performances - as does Victor Jory in a key supporting role. This film does not deserve to be forgotten.