classicsoncall James Cagney and Joan Blondell made seven films together between 1930 and 1934, portraying characters that were romantically involved in three of them. The other two were "Sinners Holiday" (1930) and "He Was Her Man" (1934). I haven't seen that last one yet, this picture entices me to look it up real soon.As in all his early flicks, Cagney is full of energy and wise cracks portraying his character Bert Harris, a bellhop at a Midwestern hotel. Right after he meets Ann Roberts (Blondell) and sets her up with a job as a linen girl, he offers to bring up some 'hooch' and sandwiches! Whoa - I had to replay that scene a couple of times. I've heard the word used in other films of the era but it always catches me off guard, just one of the perks that come with watching films from the Thirties before the Code restrictions came along.Louis Calhern and a young Ray Milland make appearances along the way and engage in a series of scams and shakedowns with and against the principal stars. Bert chases Anne throughout the story, but because she gets tired of the grifting life, eventually marries Dapper Dan Barker (Calhern), an irritating character Bert refers to at one point as a 'smack-off'. It was gratifying to see Barker taken for $6500 in the horse race scam, that was the kind of smack-off he deserved.I'm glad I'm not the only one to register a thumbs down with the way the picture ended. I just didn't understand Dan Barker's angle setting Bert up to take a fall with the police. Barker's thirty grand was still gone no matter which way you slice it, even if the non-negotiable bonds were recovered. One explanation perhaps is that he never blew the thirty grand to begin with, but the story could have let us in on that little secret without making the ending so abrupt and confusing. Very unsatisfactory.Otherwise though, an entertaining entry from the early Thirties that nicely showcases it's top billed stars and gets them together for a smooch by the end of the story. And just in case you forgot to count, Blondell smacked Cagney four times!

kidboots Who knew that when James Cagney and Joan Blondell started out in the quite dramatic "Sinner's Holiday" they were going to be remembered (as a team) for smart and snappy vehicles like "Blonde Crazy" and "Footlight Parade". As usual, at the Warner's factory, Joan, who had only started out in films the year before, had already made 12 movies by the time she appeared in "Blonde Crazy". From best friend duty in "The Office Wife" and "Millie" to eye catching moments in "Night Nurse", she called herself a "studio dame"!!This movie ticks all the right boxes, being a funny, sexy, slap happy romp with a sprinkling of pathos at the end. "A leading hotel in a small mid western city" is where Cagney, as Bert, struts his stuff - as resident bell hop, part time bootlegger and full time "blonde watcher". When he gets Ann (Blondell) a job as a maid, he expects some payment but she is strictly A.P.O (ain't puttin' out!! - see "Other Men's Women") - except with the slaps which she delivers with gusto!! She wants real love and commitment and she doesn't think she will find it with Bert. Wisecracks fly thick and fast - "the age of chivalry is dead, this is the age of chiselry"!!!They finally form a working partnership and when Rupert Johnson Jnr. (Guy Kibbee) comes to the hotel and seems keen on Ann, the stage is set for an elaborate hoax with Nat Pendleton doubling as a conscientious cop, Ann as a lady in distress and Burt as an eager to help witness. This little piece of work nets them $5,000 and with it they flee to "the leading hotel at a big city" where Bert falls in with Dan Barker and Helen (Louis Calhern and Noel Francis) a pair of racketeering con artists who suck Bert into a phoney counterfeiting trick - needless to say Bert gets fleeced!! Meanwhile Ann meets and falls for Joe Reynolds (an extremely young Ray Milland), a debonair young fellow who works for a New York brokerage firm but it is a case of better the con man you know than the crook you don't.There are so many little cons Ann and Bert get up to - the movie is so much fun (there is even a spontanious little dance Cagney does when he and Joan go out for a night on the town). Ann even works out her own little scheme to get even with Dan - "where's Helen", "Oh, I sent her packing", "so she was strictly on the installment plan", "yes and all I forked out was the down payment"!!! There was nothing cheap about Noel Francis, even though she spent most of her career playing gangster's girls. She was a Follies girl and first came to the movies in a musical "Movietone Follies of 1930" where she even sang a song!! She made her last movie in 1937, in a Buck Jones western "Sudden Bill Dorn" and then seemed to vanish off the face of the earth. Try as I might, I can't find out anything about her but with her luminous blonde beauty she deserved a bigger career.

imogensara_smith Cagney is more than usually full of beans in this one—and for him that's really saying something. Unable to contain his energy and high spirits, he indulges in outrageous vocal mannerisms and looks half the time like he's on the verge of breaking into dance. Though (alas) he doesn't do any hoofing, he flaunts his amazing control of his body, darting and weaving through the role like a boxer in the ring. He gets to display the versatility of his talents as his character goes from crafty schemer to world-class chump, cynical operator to heart-broken lover. Explosive on screen, off screen Cagney was reported to be introverted, aloof and intense. Even in the midst of a zany performance like this one you can see a kind of quivering stillness at the heart of him. Joan Blondell was the best love interest Cagney ever had. More than able to stand up to him, she brings out an unexpectedly tender and sexy side of his cocky, wound-up persona. Off-screen they adored each other, though they were never romantically involved, and their mutual fondness is abundantly evident in Blonde Crazy; indeed it's the best reason to watch the film. Blondell, with her appetizing chorus-girl looks, has a warm, open front but an inner reserve and caution. She's a girl who knows how to take care of herself: watch how she handles a lecherous Guy Kibbee, who tries to tempt her with a string of pearls. She breaks the necklace, and when he bends over to pick up the pieces she stuffs a handful of pearls down his pants, wallops him on the backside and scrams! Blondell, Cagney and everyone else involved seem to be having the time of their lives in this movie. Cagney is Bert Harris, a bell-hop who keeps a scrapbook of successful confidence tricks and dreams of making his fortune as a con artist. Anne Roberts (Blondell) just wants a job as a chambermaid in his hotel, but Bert, who helps her get the job after getting an eyeful of her, talks her into joining forces with him and they set out for the big time. A number of confidence tricks are depicted with loving care, but despite the cleverness of the schemes these scenes are a little tedious. We just want to see more of Anne and Bert bickering. He keeps making passes at her and she keeps turning him down, but neither seems to hold it against the other. I tried to keep count of how many times Blondell slaps Cagney, but I lost track somewhere; in one scene Anne slaps Bert, then Bert's jealous girlfriend Peggy slaps Anne, Anne slaps her back, and finally Peggy slaps Bert for laughing. At another point, Anne gives Bert her brightest smile and says, "I can't go without letting you know how I care for you"—SMACK. But their relationship deepens gradually, and by the time Anne announces that she's going to marry another man, your heart bleeds for Bert, the chiseler with the wandering eye. The final scene of Blonde Crazy is one of the few genuinely romantic moments of Cagney's career, as he gazes up at Blondell with shining, worshipful eyes. Anne explains that she is marrying her Wall Street fiancé (Ray Milland) because he and his family are "a different kind of people. They care for music and art and that kind of thing." As soon as she says that, we know Milland is bad news; he turns out to be the louse of all time, not only embezzling money from his firm but setting Bert up to take the rap. Bert and Anne's criminal activities are practically virtuous by contrast, since the people they cheat are invariably despicable. Everyone in this movie, as Bert says, "has larceny in his heart." This is a typical Depression-era attitude: the rich and cultured are crooks, and hypocrites too. We're invited to admire the cleverness of "honest" swindlers and to revel in their ill-gotten gains. But ultimately this isn't a movie about grifters so much as about two people whose hard-boiled, wised-up outlook almost prevents them from admitting their love for each other. They have good reason to be this way; they can't trust anybody. Con artists con fellow con artists, and the respectable turn out to be completely without decency. Life is a continuous game of one-upmanship, a contest to see who can laugh last. Anne and Bert turn out to be the only remotely worthy people in the movie, since at least they care about each other, though they don't understands their real feelings until they're in danger of losing the other. In the end, chivalry makes an unexpected comeback.

David (Handlinghandel) Roy del Ruth directed one exciting, racy movie after another in the days between the advent of talkies and the advent of the Code. This is definitely high on the list; but the lot sort of undoes everyone: It starts off as a naughty romp about a bellboy an a girl he gets a job in the hotel laundry. They are played by James Cagney (in one of his best roles, "White Heat" being probably my other favorite) and the always, always lovely and appealing Joan Blondell.Their spats, his calling her "Hon-EE" are charming. The scene in which she's in the bath and tells him her money is in brassiere is pretty darn risqué. Not to mention his holding her panties in front of his own lower torso and then, very quickly sniffing the finger that's held her undergarments! Their fleecing of Guy Kibbee is fine. He's a classic movie boob and they don't take him for a lot.Suddenly, though, Louis Calhern is a genuine gangster and they hook up with him. And this is not funny. Then the young, not very good or attractive Ray Milland appears and the plot gets really ugly.(I do like Milland in his later roles but he was a baby here.) Had it simply stayed a saucy comedy it would have rated an 8 or maybe a 9. It covers too many bases, though, and the