Butch Minds the Baby

Damon Runyon's short story 'Butch Minds the Baby' is probably the funniest thing Runyon ever wrote; it's certainly one of his most widely anthologised stories. I have a fairly low threshold for Runyon's world: I find most of his fictional characters extremely contrived and implausible, and I strongly dislike his penchant for lower-class characters who speak without contractions ... such as saying 'I am not' instead of "I'm not" or "I ain't". Most working-class people I've encountered (in anglophone cultures, at least) use contractions constantly.

I had keen hopes that this movie would be as funny as the story it was based on, but (as Runyon might say) such is not the case. Some of the changes in this film version were completely unnecessary, and weaken the original material. The film also suffers from the casting in the central role of Broderick Crawford, whose comedic talents are nil.

Susie O'Neill (the very beautiful and sexy Virginia Bruce) is a widow with an infant son. As she must work to support herself and baby Michael, she frequently entrusts the child to big-hearted Aloysius Grogan, better known as Butch: a former safecracker who swears he has gone straight ... but he stays in touch with his crooked buddies.

In fact, now Butch's buddies want to enlist him in a payroll heist. This is a nitro job, and Butch is the only one who can handle the nitroglycerin properly. The problem is, the money will be in the safe for one night only ... and this is the night that Butch minds Susie's baby. Butch can't get another sitter on short notice ... so, off he goes to explode the safe, with a tube of nitroglycerin in one hand and the baby under his arm.

Complications ensue. Unfortunately, they aren't nearly as funny as in the original story. Among other things, the baby starts playing with the nitro ... but this is easy to do on the printed page. On the screen, the infant actor fails to perform on cue ... and to see an actual baby handling explosives -- even fake explosives from the Props department -- is much less hilarious than reading this about a fictional baby.

Dick Foran is the handsome cop who takes an interest in Susie and in Butch's extracurricular activities. Of course, Butch has a clever alibi: any man who carries a live baby in his coat can't possibly be out cracking safes, right? This being a Damon Runyon movie, we get the usual rogues' gallery of overly-contrived mugs and thugs. The funniest of these is Shemp Howard as Squinty, who is so myopic he can't recognise anyone until they're right in front of him. Albert S Rogell offers his usual leaden direction. This one barely rates 3 out of 10. Sorry, Damon...

Expert safecracker Broderick Crawford gets out of prison and reluctantly turns straight. He's a three-time loser, and the next felony is for life. So he's working as a janitor for the the basement apartment and eight bucks a week, when he smells gas and discovers that Virginia Bruce, who's about to be evicted, has tried to kill herself. He rescues her and her baby and wrangles with Dick Foran, who's trying to be a by-the-book cop. But Foran falls for Miss Bruce, and tries to give Crawford a break, while Crawford falls for the baby, since ladies are out of his league.

It's based on a Damon Runyon story. In fact, the credits announce this is "Damon Runyon's most famous COLLIER'S MAGAZINE story" and he not only gets a writing credit, it's "A Damon Runyon Production." And with the usual collection of Runyon's sentimental gangsters, played by comics like Richard Lane, Shemp Howard,Fuzzy Knight, and Tom Kennedy, it certainly has its moments of amusement Crawford was excellent in this period playing a sentimental slob of a hood, and he's a fine lead here, even if Miss Bruce gets top credit.

Although produced by Damon Runyon himself, this movie by no means a satisfactory transcription of his short story, completely missing the verve and vitality, and above all the signature characterizations, language and mise-en-scene of the original. Yet Spigelgass has gone out of his way to add a whole host of new people with flashy Runyonesque names. But unfortunately, that's all they are: Names, not believable people.

The original story has only nine characters to speak of: the unnamed narrator, Butch and his baby, Harry the Horse, Spanish John, Little Isadore (who has not a single word of direct dialogue), a watchman, a fat police sergeant and an eager-beaver copper.

More Broadway identities milling around do not necessarily a better motion picture make, though it must be admitted that Shemp Howard's "Blinky" is more inspired than all the other additions. On the other hand, Broderick Crawford is simply not sufficiently Runyonesque to play the title role. In fact, as stated, all the film's characters are sketchily drawn, one-dimensional figures that have neither been filled in nor rounded out. (Considerably handicapped as they are, it's no wonder that few of the players make any impression). Nor is this the limit of the screenplay's defects. The plot now seems too weak to hold an audience's interest for 75 minutes. For a two-reeler, the one-themed story would suffice, but it has been quite inadequately strengthened for a feature-length film.

Rogell's heavy-handed and ponderously slow-moving direction doesn't help either. And even Woody Bredell's photography seems several notches below his usual standard, while the sets too have a distinctly grade "B" aura about them.

All told, a very disappointing and mediocre effort.

I saw this movie as a child of seven and although details are not there I did remember Broderick Crawford was Butch. It has also stuck in my memory all these years along with many of the great early 40 movies. I have searched for it on TV and in Halliwell, Maltin and Videohound to no avail. I was delighted to find it here with a review to boot. I was certain it was a lost film. Thank you for your service. I'll be back looking for more. Later in my life I discovered Damon Runyon's stories and have read all I can get my hands on. I tried to see Guys and Dolls in New York in 1951 but couldn't get a ticket, not even standing room. I have seen every Runyon based movie since and would be delighted to see this one again if it were to turn up.