Pre-Code Essentials: Blonde Crazy (1931)

Plot

Bert Harris (James Cagney) is a hotel bellhop by day and runs gambling and bootlegging rackets by night. When Anne Roberts (Joan Blondell) shows up at the hotel looking for work, Bert knows Anne is exactly the kind of gal he needs working with him and manages to get her a job at the hotel even though the job has already been filled. He tries his best to win her over and she resists for a while, but eventually gets her to join his racket.

After the first time she helps him extort some money from a hotel guest, they go out to celebrate and Bert meets fellow con-artist Dan Barker (Louis Calhern). Dan and Bert start conspiring on a scam together, but it’s all a rouse to con Bert and Anne. When Bert realizes they’ve been ripped off, he and Anne go on a train to go after him, but Anne ends up meeting and falling in love with Joe Reynolds (Ray Milland). Bert has been head-over-heels in love with Anne since the day he met her, but Anne just isn’t as into the criminal lifestyle and thinks Joe is everything Bert isn’t. But after marrying Joe, Anne finds out he’s a lot more like Bert than she realized. Joe’s gotten himself into some serious trouble and the only person Anne can turn to for help is Bert.

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My Thoughts

I absolutely love Blonde Crazy. Cagney and Blondell are two of my favorite stars of the pre-code era and this is a perfect vehicle for them to do what they did best. They had the perfect energy for this kind of fast-paced movie with snappy banter.

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The Definitive Pre-Code Moments

When Bert goes looking for money in Anne’s brassiere.

Anne doing a glorious job of shutting down a lecherous hotel guest.

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Why It’s an Essential Pre-Code

It would be easier to list what isn’t pre-code about Blonde Crazy; it’s pretty much 79 minutes of non-stop pre-code action. Not only is it chock full of saucy and full of suggestive stuff, it does a great job of making Bert and Anne into characters you find yourself oddly rooting for and hoping they end up together despite the fact that they’re a con artist and an accomplice. Under the production code, it was a big deal that the audience wasn’t supposed to be able to root for criminals. Anne’s a little more conventionally sympathetic since she’s not as interested in the criminal lifestyle, but Bert is completely invested in it. Cagney brought so much energy and charisma to Bert (not to say that Blondell didn’t do the same for Anne), that it’s really hard to not to get wrapped up in all of that. He made it easy to forget you’re hoping a criminal gets the girl in the end.

Blonde Crazy (1931)

When Anne Roberts (Joan Blondell) tries to get a job as a hotel housekeeper, bellhop Bert Harris (James Cagney) takes one look at her and knows he wants her to work at the hotel.  The position has already been filled, but Bert fixes it so that Anne gets the job.  Even though Bert is a bellhop by day, he’s got gambling and bootleg alcohol rackets going on the side and he wants Anne to be his partner in crime.

After catching hotel guest A. Rupert Johnson, Jr. (Guy Kibbee) in a compromising situation, Johnson gives Bert quite a bit of money to keep his mouth shut.  Bert and Anne go to a fancy hotel in another city to celebrate and end up meeting fellow con artist Dan Barker (Louis Calhern).  Dan and Bert plan a scam to pull together, but in the end, it’s Bert and Anne are the ones who get ripped off.  They hop on a train to try to find Dan, but on the way, Anne meets and falls in love with Joe Reynolds (Ray Milland).  Joe is more sophisticated and cultured than Bert and Anne can’t resist that.  Even though Bert confesses his feelings toward her, Anne decides marries Joe instead.

A year passes and turns out Joe is much more like Bert than Anne realized.  He’s stolen $30,000 from the company he works for and is facing a prison sentence.  Anne knows the only person who can possibly get him out of this mess is Bert, so she turns to him for help.  Bert comes up with a plan, but it backfires and Bert is the one who ends up in prison.  When Anne comes to visit him, she tells Bert that she loved him all along.

What a duo James Cagney and Joan Blondell were!  I’ve seen nearly all of the movies they made together and I’d say Blonde Crazy is one of their best, second only to Footlight Parade.  Blonde Crazy is practically tailor-made for Cagney and Blondell — snappy dialogue, pre-code antics, and plenty of chances for Blondell to be sassy and for Cagney to be his high-energy self.  They make it an absolutely irresistible movie.  Whether you’re a fan of Cagney, Blondell, or pre-codes in general, you will have a lot of fun with Blonde Crazy.

20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)

Tommy Connors (Spencer Tracy) is a big shot gangster and when he’s sentenced to time in Sing Sing, he expects to be as much of a big shot in prison as he is out of prison.  He arrives to a crowd of photographers and his lawyer friend Joe Finn (Louis Calhern) tries to bribe warden Paul Long (Arthur Byron) to make things easy for Tommy.  But Paul is one warden who can’t be bought.  Tommy thinks he’s going to call all the shots and is determined to not be broken, but he quickly finds out the warden is even tougher.  When Tommy doesn’t want to wear the uniform, he gets sent to work in the ice house without the warm uniform.  And when Tommy says he refuses to work, the warden sticks him in isolation until he’s begging to work.  When Tommy finally does cave, he eventually becomes a model prisoner and even backs out of being part of an escape attempt.

One day, a telegram arrives for Tommy informing him that his girlfriend Fay (Bette Davis) has been seriously hurt.  Luckily for Tommy, he has built enough trust with the warden that the warden is willing to let him out on his honor just for one day so he can go see Fay.  Tommy gives his word that he’ll come back if it’s the last thing he does.  What Tommy doesn’t know is that his old pal Joe Finn is the one responsible for Fay’s injuries.  Tommy and Finn get into a fight and Fay grabs a gun that’s nearby and shoots Finn.  Even though he’s innocent, he knows he’s in big trouble, so he panics and tries to make a break for it.  The warden is lambasted by the media, but eventually Tommy decides to turn himself in and is put on death row.  When Fay recovers, she tries to tell the truth about what happened, but it’s of no help.

20,000 Years in Sing Sing is much more of a Spencer Tracy movie than it is a Bette Davis movie and he is fantastic in it.  I haven’t seen very many of Spencer’s early movies, so this really was a treat for me to see.  This movie also came pretty early in Bette’s career and is clearly from that era when Warner Brothers didn’t know what to do with her.  Although she’s fine in it, she wasn’t used to her full potential here.  She just wasn’t meant to have her hair dyed blonde and be playing gangster’s girlfriends.  But that being said, this is one of Bette’s better early films, I’d say tied with Three on a Match as the best from her pre-Of Human Bondage era.  I really enjoyed it.  Well written, well acted, and has great direction by Michael Curtiz.  All in all, a sharp little movie.

Frisco Jenny (1932)

In 1906, Jenny Sandoval (Ruth Chatterton) was working in a saloon in San Francisco with her father Jim, the owner, and her boyfriend Dan McAllister (James Murray), the piano player.  Jenny and Dan are ready to get married, but Jim isn’t happy about it at all.  As Jenny argues with her father over their decision, the big earthquake of 1906 strikes and both Jim and Dan are killed.  Having no one else to turn to, Jenny makes friends with a Chinese woman named Amah.  We soon find out the reason why Jenny and Dan were in a rush to get married: she was going to have a baby.  Amah helps Jenny take care of her baby, also named Dan, but when Jenny has no money to buy food for Dan, she has to take drastic action.  With help from crooked lawyer Steve Dutton (Louis Calhern), she starts her own brothel.  One night, Jenny and her girls are at a party and Steve and a man named Ed Harris are doing some gambling in another room.  Steve catches Ed cheating and Jenny walks in just in time to see Steve shoot Ed.  Jenny tries to cover for Ed, but she still gets arrested.  When Steve gets her out of jail, she finds out that Dan will be taken away from her because of the whole mess.  Rather than have Dan taken away, Steve arranges for Dan to be given up to a nice, respectable family.

Jenny never stops caring for Dan and watches him grow up from afar.  She keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about him and eventually he grows up to run for District Attorney (adult Dan played by Donald Cook).  However, since Jenny is still running her brothel and has also taken up bootlegging, Dan’s opponent would act more in her best interest.  But Jenny still wants to see Dan win and even orchestrates a scandal for his opponent so he’ll drop out of the race.  Once Dan is officially District Attorney, his first order of business is to put Steve and Jenny out of business.  Steve, desperate to stay out of jail, goes to tell Dan the truth about who his mother is.  But not wanting to ruin Dan’s career, Jenny shoots Steve before he can tell Dan the truth.  Jenny is put on trial and her own son sends her to death row.

Ruth Chatterton is another one of those great actresses from the pre-code era who is sadly underrated today.  Even though Frisco Jenny is quite similar to Ruth’s earlier movie Madame X, which earned her an Oscar nomination, that doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting movie.  Ruth Chatterton once again brought her “A” game and made Jenny very likable and sympathetic, especially in her final scene where she agonizes over whether or not to finally tell Dan that she is his mother.  Ruth got some good help from Louis Calhern, who did a good job of playing smarmy, and director William Wellman.  The movie was entertaining, but as I said, the story’s been done before.  But ultimately, it’s got some good performances and it’s only about 70 minutes long, so I’m willing to forgive the unoriginal story.  I’ll gladly re-watch it just because I liked Ruth Chatterton in it so much.