Boy Meets Girl

source: Boy Meets Girl

Trailer—Boy Meets Girl

Boy Meets Girl

This was the first Names Cagney movie that I absolutely did not enjoy. To say I'm disappointed is putting it mildly. I found it annoying many times with all the yelling and loud talking. I think this movie was supposed to be a comedy. I didn't find it funny or entertaining in the least. It wasn't a good drama, either. I'm a Cagney fan, and if you are too, then skip this movie.

I adore James Cagney, and while I find a lot of the antics in this film to be over-the-top--annoying even--I do enjoy imagining how much fun Cagney must've had making this crazy film with his pals Pat O'Brien & Frank McHugh!

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.

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.

Prankster screenwriters Robert Law (James Cagney) and J.C. Benson (Pat O'Brien) are struggling with a script. Robert is tired of writing trash. Western star Larry Toms is tired of the two writers. They pitch the standard to producer C.F. Friday. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. Flighty pregnant waitress Susie Seabrook faints in Friday's office. The boys take on the job of being the baby's Godfathers and come up with a new idea for the cowboy movie. The screwball comedy from the writing duo has some good humor. At least, they bring plenty of energy and that's enough to raise the comedic level. I like that they randomly lead a revolt of the native Indian actors. The rest is less fun. I do like the dimwitted Susie sometimes. I don't care that much about any of the characters. The movie should really center on the two writers rather be scattered around the various characters. Overall, there are a few little chuckles in this screwball comedy.

I love "screwball comedies" from the 1930s and 40s. Such films as ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and BRINGING UP BABY and HIS GIRL Friday are wonderful films--with a wonderfully breezy pace, high energy and lots of laughs. BOY MEETS GIRL is an attempt to do this same sort of comedy, though the laughs just aren't that noticeable and the film is too darn frenetic to be enjoyed. I am serious when I say that this film was even more fast-paced and hyper than ONE, TWO, THREE and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. Because of this, I really found the film to be, at times, truly annoying--particularly the characters played by Cagney and O'Brien. They were NOT particularly likable, well-developed or easy to follow! In many ways, it was like having an average actor pretend to be a Marx Brother from one of their REALLY hyper early films--like HORSEFEATHERS. The problem is, it worked for the Marxes--but not here. A frantic pace alone does not make a movie--a decent script and good characters need to be in place as well.