The Bride Came C.O.D.

source: The Bride Came C.O.D.

Trailer—The Bride Came C.O.D.

The Bride Came C.O.D.

This is really a very good, very funny comedy, thanks largely to James Cagney , who could evidently play any sort of role wonderfully. He's great here as a poor pilot trying to hold on to his plane. The plot, to the extent that there is one, is yet another variant on *It Happened One NIght*, the story of a spoiled young heiress who is kept from marrying a playboy she doesn't really know well by some Average Joe who hopes to make a few bucks by bringing her back to her wealthy father. Gable is great in that role in the original , but Cagney is every bit as good in this knockoff. Eugene Pallette gets the Walter Connolly role as the wealthy father, but it isn't developed as well here. Unlike in *It Happened One NIght*, which was filmed in 1934, we don't get a chance to see the America of its time here, and that is a real loss. But what we do get are some funny if obvious situations, and a very funny James Cagney. That's definitely worth watching the movie for.

Bette Davis and Jimmy Cagney had been teamed once before in "Jimmy the Gent", also a comedy. That picture and this one are two of the relatively rare Bette Davis comedies. Jimmy the Gent was pleasant and fast moving, and featured the two stars relatively early in their career's. Here, they are both at the top of their game, and they elevate the mediocre material into something fast paced, fun, and easy to watch. It's a real pleasure to see two of the screen's greatest stars together. Nothing great, but definitely worth seeing for fans of the stars or of screwball comedies of that era.

This was fairly entertaining film with so-so comedy, good enough for one viewing with the two big-name actors in the lead: James Cagney and Bette Davis. But multiple looks diminish this and it becomes just too dated and corny. It doubt if it's a film either Cagney or Davis would brag about having on their resumes. Cagney and Davis did play off each other pretty well with some good dialog, to be fair. I also enjoyed Harry Davenport as the ghost town hotel owner. He didn't get a big enough billing for the role he played. Eugene Pallete, Jack Carson, George Tobias and Stuart Erwin also contributed and all were fine except Carson, who was just plain stupid.

I quite liked THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D. It's an obvious riff on the screwball structure established by the much superior IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, but Cagney and Davis really make it so much better than it could have been without their personas and chemistry there to liven things up. If you love the Warner Bros. acting stable of this period, then you're in for a good time. The plot isn't clever or original, but I laughed quite a lot. Considering how hard it is to get me to laugh aloud when watching a movie, that alone makes this an achievement.

Sure it had been done once or twice before, and it was done a dozen times following... but this one is a classic on merit alone. Davis and Cagney were the top two Warner's actors at the time and had fought their own respective legal battles with the studio in the years prior, as well as being very good friends. This film catches them at the tops of their game, just being allowed to be silly and have fun in a movie no one really expected much out of. The formula works and though the pacing isn't the best, hang-in because it's worth it. Saturday afternoon popcorn film.

It's more than possible that when this movie was released it got lost in the shuffle simply because there was so much more of the same - screwball comedy - out there, most of it with old hands, Grant, Lombard, etc, who had polished the genre to within an inch of its life. But seen today when polish is thin on the ground and Real stars have given way to ersatz it comes across as a minor gem. The Epstein twins concocted a soufflé from leftovers of It Happened One Night, added a touch of spin and voila; take one madcap heiress bent on marrying the wrong man, add one charter pilot about to lose his plane, strike a deal for the pilot to kidnap said heiress and return her to poppa in return for cash in hand. Have the plane come down by a ghost town and leave them to let nature take its course. Bouquets all round.

I had always avoided this flick because I love both its stars and had read and heard not-so-flattering things about it. Finally caught up with it on the beautiful DVD transfer, and was either laughing or smiling from beginning to end, and believe me that's a rarity! How nice to see all those naysayers proved wrong. Granted, this is one of the most contrived and tortured "meet cute" setups in screwball history, but the plot mechanics are dispensed with quickly and it's all Cagney and Davis at their most sparkling from there on. I actually think it's best to watch this not knowing what happens, so I'll just say WATCH IT if you have a liking for either -- or both -- of these stars. And the Epstein-brothers' script is hilarious; it should be studied by today's comedy writers.