Boy Meets Girl

Impressively ludicrous and hyperactive Hollywood self-spoof, Cagney and O'Brien play a pair of screenwriters sponging from a studio too free with its money. Double-talk turns to triple-talk as they do battle with various opposing forces (a hapless cowboy star, a college-educated producer, an effete English extra and even Ronald Reagan) to control a baby-star whose career they created while it was still in the womb; they are only defeated by the Eternal Power of Love as Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Finds Girl Again. Cagney, a genius who always struggled to play anyone who remotely resembled a normal human being, and O'Brien speak so fast that even native speakers of English struggle to follow. They would have given the Marx Brothers a run for their manic money.

Yet the greatest lines (and facial expressions) are reserved for Ralph Bellamy, on top form as the dopey producer (presumably a caricature of some well-known figure). Only Bellamy could spin comic gold from a line like "Good Gad, you've been drinking my milk." "It's 1938" says O'Brien. "I know that," replies Bellamy, "but not everyone's an intellectual."

I didn't find this to be a hilarious comedy, but it's entertaining and has some good performances. Cagney of course is excellent, and Marie Wilson is particularly charming as the naive mother of Happy, Hollywood's newborn sensation. The dialogue is extremely fast (for a challenge, try keeping up with it with your closed-captioning on.) The plot is perhaps a bit silly by today's standards, but good performances make this a worthwhile film. Look out for "in-jokes" about the movie industry, a future American president in a small role, and a lot of trumpets (or are they trombones?) Personally this film never made me laugh out loud, but it made me smile a lot.

Cagney was always trying to break away from his tough guy image, and is obviously relishing this FAST paced screwball comedy (think THE FRONT PAGE/HIS GIRL Friday) about two zany screenwriters. He mugs, he shouts, he dances, he wise-cracks, acts fey-you name it, he does a million bits of business here. Not until ONE,TWO,THREE 25 years later will you see Cagney in this mode again. FRONT PAGE vet Pat O'Brian easily keeps up the pace, but he's playing the "straight" funny man here. Ralph Bellamy is a riot as the idiot producer (college-man) as is Dick Foran, who sends up his own cowboy image (who knew Foran was this good?). At times the pace gets away from the actors and certain scenes are TOO frenetic, and laughs are lost, but generally this is such an off-beat surprise, that despite an ugly, washed out print that makes the film feel even older and less stellar, there is enough entertainment here for those who can plug into the farcical tone of a film that pulls the pants of Hollywood down.

Boy Meets Girl (1938)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely poor and unfunny spoof of Hollywood has two screenwriters (James Cagney/Pat O'Brien) coming up with a scheme to make their next film a hit. There's a lot of fast talking and some slapstick but I can't help but feel this should have been a film with The Marx Brothers instead. Cagney and O'Brien make a great team in dramas but their comedy act here just doesn't work and it comes off quite forced. The laughs are pushed so hard that it becomes rather annoying very quickly. Ralph Bellamy co-stars in this semi-redo of The Front Page. To date, this is the worst Cagney film I've seen.

Not in plot. In style where it counts. The dialogue comes really thick and fast. Pat O'Brien plays smooth Hildy Johnson again, only this time he's called J. Carlyle Benson, screenwriter. He runs rings around Ralph Bellamy who is bemusedly befuddled once more, as he was about to be shortly in "His Girl Friday", the remake of "The Front Page". "Boy Meets Girl" can hold its head up high in the company of either of those films. There are crazy laughs and movie industry in-jokes aplenty.

There's a swipe at Canadians! There's a swipe at Mark Hellinger!! There's a swipe at Marcel Proust!!! "Lui-même!" as pretentious droppers of French phrases like Ralph Bellamy would say.

Pat O'Brien does a pratfall! In the part of conniving Walter Burns, you've got Jimmy Cagney who naturally has no trouble keeping up with Pat. Jimmy's real-life buddy Frank McHugh plays their nemesis, Rossetti, the agent.

There are good, well-written parts here even for minor characters like those played by Marie Wilson and Bruce Lester.

Because the movie is littered with gags of all kinds, I just assume that the "errors" I see are only more in-jokes. Two characters discuss Errol Flynn and agree that he really is English. Wrong! We know he's actually Australian. But it's just another joke, in disguise. Doubly ironic is the fact that the English character in the scene is played by a South African. There's a joke about exactly this sort of thing in a different scene! Art imitates life imitating art imitating life. Or something. A cowboy movie gets produced during the course of the film. It's called "Golden Nuggets" on the poster, then "Golden Nugget" a minute later in the movie trailer. A mistake? Or just another swipe, this time at more typical slipshod Hollywood productions?

A film by and about screenwriters making fun of themselves, and everyone else while they're at it. A really funny, fast-moving story and a tangled plot. An ironic title. This is no simple "boy meets girl" movie.