Though Bette Davis dismissed this film as a piece of fluff it was an entertaining piece of fluff. For the one and only time in her career Davis entered the world of screwball comedy. This film is the sort of stuff that Cary Grant and Carole Lombard would have been right at home with.
Davis is paired for the second and last time with James Cagney. During the mid Thirties she and Cagney did a film called Jimmy the Gent which was not memorable for either of them. The Bride Came C.O.D. was far better material.
Davis is a young heiress who is being pursued by bandleader Jack Carson and columnist Stu Erwin who wants the story of their elopement. Cagney owns a small charter aviation company and the finance company man in the person of Ed Brophy is pursuing him. This is after Carson has chartered Cagney's plane.
Knowing that Davis's father Eugene Palette wants the marriage stopped at any cost, Cagney hits upon a mad scheme to kidnap Davis and fly her to Palette. He does it, but her antics forces a crash landing in the desert near a ghost town, inhabited only by Harry Davenport.
It gets pretty wild after that with everyone in the cast and his brother descending on that ghost town for their own agendas. Cagney and Davis worked very well with each other and Cagney was one of the few actors she didn't have a disparaging remark about.
It's entirely possible that players more experienced in the screwball comedy genre might have made The Bride Came C.O.D. a classic. But Cagney and Davis and the marvelous cast of some of the best supporting players around, made a pretty funny film in any case.
