rhoda-9 Fans of the divine Joel McCrea and the adorable Jean Arthur will enjoy watching them doing the romantic fencing needed to prolong the love story aspect of the movie. The trouble is that the other aspect of the movie, the bank robbery, is really, really dumb, and makes even 72 minutes seem long, with its plot that is ridiculous and totally unbelievable both strategically and psychologically. Every time the movie comes round to it, it seems even less believable and more tiresome.That's not the only reason for the low rating. There is an extended joke involving a dead child that is horrible and offensive, and a quick joke involving a blind beggar that is also pretty tasteless. Yes, people at that time did not react the same way we do, but other movies did not commit such gross lapses of taste that, for me anyway, threw the comedy off the track.

mark.waltz If you can forgive the cruel prank played on reporter Joel McCrea at the very beginning by his lesson-teaching boss (Thomas Mitchell) with the help of a nutty actress (Jean Arthur), then you can find some amusement with everything that happens next. It all surrounds the theft of a valuable gem, and the romance that blossoms between McCrea and Arthur after the initial misunderstanding. The screenplay takes the storyline all over the map and while you are wondering if you've missed some important development, you suddenly realize that this is the mood the script writer was going for. It is perhaps a bit more complex than a screwball comedy can be, and the cruel element of the opening might even turn the viewer off to turn the movie off, but stick with it. The sticky plot twists are sometimes ridiculous. Herman Bing, the S.Z. Sakall of the 1930's, overacts with gusto, and appears to be the influence for John Banner's Sergeant Schultz of TV's "Hogan's Heroes".

vincentlynch-moonoi I was expecting a treat here. After all, there was Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Reginald Owen, and Thomas Mitchell. I was also expecting a comedy. Wrong on both counts. The cast performances here were disappointing, and this is a drama...well...sort of.When she made this film, Jean Arthur had been in the business for 13 years, but she had only recently hit it big with "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town". Far too many of her earlier films were memorable only for their titles (such as "The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu"). But, beginning in this year, and for the next 8 years, Arthur was a force to be reckoned with at the box office. Here you see hints of the Arthur to come.Joel McCrea's finest film period began about 3 years after this film, and lasted for 3-4 years until he began concentrating on Westerns...which may have seemed financially wise at the time, but today do not exactly help one's film legacy. McCrea is "okay" here, but if you want to see him at his best, try something like "Foreign Correspondent" or "Palm Beach Story".So, you have each of these actors at something less than their best, and you'll probably be disappointed in both Reginald Owen and Thomas Mitchell (and one is rarely disappointed in Mitchell). And then there's the story line, which is a bit of a stretch. Can anyone really be as intuitive as McCrea is supposed to be in this film? And that is the question that hold the plot together...barely.And so, while I was expecting a treat here, I got a trick. I hung through until the end, although I'm not quite sure why. Ah well, they can't all be winners.

bkoganbing After a big success in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town which really established Jean Arthur as the rival in screwball comedy to Carole Lombard, she got cast in some routine films that sought to take advantage of her new image. Adventure in Manhattan was one of them and while it's plot verges on the silly it could have been a lot better, but for some really bad miscasting.The guy who could have brought off the role of the wise cracking crime reporter was over at Warner Brothers. This part James Cagney could have phoned over to Columbia, but in the hands of all American hero Joel McCrea it really looks forced. Some high profile robberies have taken place and crime reporter McCrea thinks and has written that the culprit of all these has been a master criminal along the lines of Professor Moriarty. Problem is that this guy is believed dead by all, but McCrea.McCrea is right and it's revealed early enough in the film to be Reginald Owen who is now in the guise of a theatrical producer. And Jean Arthur is an aspiring young ingénue in the cast of a World War I play he's producing. One of the problems I had with this plot was that Professor Moriarty and many of the master criminals in real life and fiction usually work alone or with as few accomplices as possible. The scheme that Owen has involves a considerable gang and I really can't swallow that somewhere along the line somebody doesn't slip up. Thomas Mitchell in one of his earliest screen roles is McCrea's editor and he's his usual good self. Arthur makes the best of a routine assignment and it took someone like Preston Sturges to bring out the real comedian in Joel McCrea.