Havana Widows

Two of the screen's best wisecracking blonds, Mae and Sadie (Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell), star as gold digging showgirls in "Havana Widows," a 1933 comedy also starring Lyle Talbot, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins and Frank McHugh.

After being visited by an old friend who made her fortune in Cuba, thanks to a compromising situation and a sharp attorney (McHugh), two showgirls borrow $1500 from a friend, Herman (Jenkins).

In order to get the money, Herman buys into a complicated scheme involving an insurance policy and a check, which later blows up in his face. Meanwhile, the girls head for Havana.

There, they meet a rich, married mark (Guy Kibbee) and his broke son (Talbot) - who of course falls for Mae. The sharp attorney turns out to be a roaring drunk 24/7, and soon, Herman appears, trying to get his money back and running from his creditor. It makes for good fun.

This is a very light comedy with the fastest dialogue ever spoken, coming out Blondell's and Farrell's mouths like a machine gun. I'm sure the amount of speaking in "Havana Widows" would equal two of today's scripts.

The roles they play are common ones for them - streetwise, hard-working young women with dry wit and a desire for some of life's comforts. They're both very good, Blondell with her adorable Kewpie-doll face and curvy body, and Farrell with that unmistakable voice and delivery. They made a good team.

Frank McHugh is very funny as the attorney - in thirty years, he never changed, and in his last film, Easy Come, Easy Go, he is instantly recognizable. Allen Jenkins as the harried friend gives good support.

All in all, an enjoyable film, nothing groundbreaking.

If the Carry On films of the 60s and 70s were made in America and were made in the early 30s they wouldn't be that different from this. It's got that same feel of amiable silliness with absurd characters whom you know exactly how they're going to behave - because they do the same role in each film. It's sort of rubbish but actually really fun and entertaining to watch. Being from the early 30s however there's more of a 'cheer up everybody' theme going on which of course would have gone down well back then.

The plot is a little lame but that doesn't matter. What you're watching isn't to tax your brain or reveal any great secret of life - it's just an hour of fun. The story, about a couple of burlesque girls trying to chisel money out of rich men would be outrageous these days but back then when opportunities for girls like this to get a bit of money and in many ways, simply to survive in the Great Depression were incredibly hard, it was seen as quite acceptable. Indeed these girls are the heroes, the ones we're rooting for. That's made easier by them being Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell. That they find it so easy to lure these men from their wives is made unquestionably believable by the outfits Joan Blondell is just about wearing!

If you don't expect a memorable or deep film but just want a taste of early 30s fast-talking, frothy light entertainment with Joan Blondell looking amazing, this will definitely tickle your fancy.

The intended humor is broad, rather than clever; familiar, rather than original; flat, rather than funny. All the ingredients of classic farce are here, except the wit that makes such farce classic. Allen Jenkins offers his usual dumb-dumb character. Frank McHugh does the supposedly comical screen drunkard - swaying, staggering, falling. Guy Kibbee...well. suffice to say that he plays the same role he did in practically every other picture. That leaves our leading ladies: chorus girls on the make Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell. A promising duo, but comedy teams work best when the performers are opposites, and here the girls play virtually identical characters. Their wisecracks don't have much snap, but then neither does the picture overall. Joan radiates her cheerful charm, as usual, despite being called upon to chew gum throughout. I think she removed it to eat, and during her wedding scene.

Blondell & Farrell are excellent. Blondell was edible. This was very funny and I laughed often throughout it. Great dialogue and its loaded with wisecracks. I could've watched it for hours. Tremendous fun to watch.

A cast of Warner's brightest farceurs work overtime in this frantic, sporadically funny gold-digger farce. In the first of several pairings, Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell play gum-chomping burlesque chorines looking to strike it rich in Havana. Though pains are made to show Blondell as a tootsie of morals (early on, she refuses her boss's request to dance at a stag party), she apparently has no qualms about trapping vacationing millionaires into breach of promise settlements.

True to form, Blondell has a last minute change of heart when she falls for the son (Lyle Talbot) of her intended mark. Luckily for the viewer the sucker happens to be Guy Kibbee, whose rooftop escape from a Cuban Turkish bath is a low comedy hoot.

Hyperthyroid Allen Jenkins provides amusing support as (what else?) a gangster's lamebrained flunky, and the wonderful Ruth Donnelly appears all too briefly as Kibbee's carnivorous wife. Only Frank McHugh is a repetitious drag; he plays a constantly inebriated lawyer in the obvious speech-slurring style common to the thirsty days of Prohibition. You have to wonder whether such witless drunk acts contributed to the repeal.