If you’re looking for feel good depression era movies then it’s likely that Raoul Walsh’s 1932 picture, Me and My Gal, would meet your search criteria. Spencer Tracy stars here opposite Joan Bennett in roles that the two performers clearly embraced. Tracy is the good-natured Irish cop, Danny Dolan, and Bennett is the cashier girl, Helen, at the lunch counter on his dockside New York City
This is essentially a goofy film made for audiences that were looking to forget their troubles, but its value can be found in its simplicity. There isn’t a pretentious note to stand on here, just pratfalls, quips, a little action, and some great romantic moments. One of the film’s best scenes foreshadows Annie Hall (1977) as Danny and Helen snuggle on a couch while her father is away from their apartment. Their spoken words reflect decorum, but they are immediately followed by their true, lustier, thoughts in voiceover. The moment is mirrored later by a touching sequence that notes the changing values of the period, in which the two discuss the paradox of giving into such temptations: do so and the object of your affection might lose respect for you. Love, however, seems to be in the air. Helen’s older sister is about to be married, albeit to a man who may not have all of her heart. When ex flame, the known criminal Baby Face, shows up just before the wedding, the sister begins to have second thoughts. However, the gangster is arrested before the ceremony and it goes off without a hitch. There is merriment and dancing, and laughter, and the guest of honor, second only to the couple, is the forbidden substance inside the keg. When Danny shows up to steal Helen away for a brief moment, he doesn’t seem to care about the booze and neither does this film.
In fact, much of this picture seems to take a strong anti-prohibition stance, not an unpopular one at this time in such Irish neighborhoods as the film portrays*. This is ironic, as the picture makes a villain of the organized crime element that thrived on the lucrative bootlegging business. The film descends into a ludicrous and almost irrelevant bank robbery plot after Baby Face escapes from prison, but this hardly matters. By this time it’s clear that Danny and Helen are all that really matter, and the rest is simply a set up. Of course the gangster calls on the older sister looking for a place to lay low while her new husband is conveniently away. Not so convenient for Baby Face is the fact that the husband’s handicapped and dumb father notices his presence in the attic. When Danny and Helen just happen to drop by, the man communicates through blinking Morse code, eventually leading to a quick shootout between the cop and the criminal.
Again, by this point we hardly care what happens with Baby Face because were too busy watching the Tracy and Bennett characters fall for each other. The action just puts a nice little bow on their romance, as the reward money for Baby Face provides the cash for a fancy wedding. This film has heart warming characters, moments of genuine humor, great running gags, and quite a bit of fun. It drags a bit at its middle, and the prop master didn’t know what a revolver was, but watching Tracy and Bennett throughout, as they cut each other just so slightly with their words, alone is worth your time. The picture ends on its pro-alcohol note, harkening back to a moment from the first wedding, as Helen’s enthusiastically inebriated father stares down the audience and notes, “Well it’s all over. C’mon let’s have another drink huh?” Though released a year before the repeal of prohibition, his sentiment sounds to foreshadow the joyous end to the Volstead act.
* In an ultimate irony, the Catholic Church lobbied to end prohibition as they simultaneously denounced films like Me and My Gal for their mild sexual content
Language: English
Runtime: 79 Minutes
Available @ Youtube.com
Grade: 3 Hats Off
0 comments:
Post a Comment