Adventure in Manhattan

It could have been a good, tough crime heist film without those comedy lines. A true excellent bank heist, through a tunnel, not an armed robbery plot. But Edward Ludwig, whose speciality will be adventure movies - CARIBBEAN, JIVARO, SANGAREE - Ed Ludwig missed the opportunity to give us a good film noir. He did it with THE LAST GANGSTER though, starring Edward G Robinson, for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, not a real tough and gritty noir either, but still good. So, back to this one, even the Joel McCrea's presence doesn't save the whole for me. Just entertaining, fun, yes, but with such crime ingredients, it could have been different and better. As if you decided to prepare an excellent dish, with the adequate ingredients choice and quantity, but with the wrong cooking time on the cooker or in the oven.

Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur have an "Adventure in Manhattan" in this 1936 film, also starring Thomas Mitchell and Reginald Owen, and directed by Edward Ludwig.

McCrea plays a sharp criminal reporter who is convinced that a world-famous thief, believed dead, is actually very much alive and responsible for some big heists that have taken place. He meets Arthur, a young actress, and the two fall in love as McCrea tries to prove his theory.

This is a really enjoyable film, with delightful performances by McCrea and Arthur. It's a bit all over the place - part screwball, part mystery. I frankly didn't see much of Nick and Nora Charles in it as others have. But the dialogue is bright, McCrea and Arthur have good chemistry, and some aspects of the mystery are good. McCrea is often thought of as sort of a poor man's Gary Cooper: a handsome, hunky all-American. In westerns there is more of a similarity, with Cooper having more gravitas, but McCrea's lighter touch and more overt personality lent themselves well to comedy. That's where he and Cooper parted company.

Enjoyable, and with a better script, it would have been terrific.

Joel McCrea gets robbed of his wallet by some weird blonde, who proves to be mixed up with the theatre business, while he is a controversial journalist who is famous for presenting predictions that come true. It's a screwball comedy with straight and witty dialog all the way getting smarter all the time, as the plot gradually thickens, and a great bank robbery is synchronized with a great premiere of a first world war drama with reckless gunfire, bombs, explosions and plenty of smoke, and for some reason Jean Arthur gets the hang of it. She is brilliant, and so is Joel McCrea, they work splendidly together as an odd couple in constant arguments with each other about their incurable differtences, but it's a comedy - nothing to worry about.

This isn't a bad film. The problem is, that this type of mystery comedy was done so much better in The Thin Man films that it pales in comparison. Plus, the character played by Joel McCrea is pretty unlikable, unlike Nick Charles.

McCrea is a top crime reporter for the newspapers. His insights and predictions are uncanny and the problem is he is 100% sure of himself and quite the fat-head! Because he's so smug, I found it hard to like him and couldn't see why nice Jean Arthur was taken in by him. So what if he was so smart--he's still kind of a jerk. As a result, the chemistry just isn't quite right.

The plot itself concerns a master criminal that everyone EXCEPT McCrea thinks is dead. Throughout the film, McCrea swears he will eventually catch this "gentleman criminal", though this man's exact identity is unknown.

The acting is decent and the film does offer a few laughs and interesting moments--but not enough to make this a "must see" film.

This is a fun film for all Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea fans and it is available online. The basic premise is that Joel McCrea is a likable newshound who angers some of his cronies with his boundless ego and they play a little joke on him. Enter Jean Arthur. After some ready made coincidences and a lot of tomfoolery the mystery is solved. In between we have some ideas stolen from earlier pictures and at least a couple that are stolen for later films. I find that kind of stuff fun so I definitely recommend this one as time well spent.