I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
NR | 01 May 1940 (USA)
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby Trailers

In I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, Broderick Crawford plays a sentimental gangster who abducts songwriter Johnny Downs and forces him to write a love ballad. It is Crawford's hope that the song will reach out and touch his long-lost childhood sweetheart. I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby was based on James Edward Grant's short story Trouble in B Flat; echoes of the basic premise later resurfaced in the 1957 "A" picture The Girl Can't Help It.

Reviews
Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
mark.waltz Just another excuse to take a famous song title and use it for the name of a movie, this is a comic spoof of the Ma Barker legend. Playing that part is a scene stealer of the greatest kind, yet sadly forgotten other than a handful of films. Jessie Ralph pretty much stole "San Francisco" as the drag herself up to Nob Hill by her boot strings matriarch, and Myrna Loy's domineering aunt in "After the Thin Man". Playing her bank robber son is Broderick Crawford whose lifelong dream to be a song writer comes true when composer Johnny Downs rescues "ma" during one of his robberies. Crawford longs to dedicate a song to his childhood sweetheart, and this leads to a reunion with the lucky "lady" (Gertrude Michael). Another Damon Runyeon style comedy with Crawford as star, this is mire than adequate as a programmer. Peggy Moran plays Downs' worried singer girlfriend, while Warren Hymer and John Sutton are the typical dumb crooks who add atmosphere and several laughs in clichéd parts. Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison and Jeni Le Gon are fun as the domestics who get to perform Crawford's hideously bad sing, proving that anything can be a hit when it features talented singers. There's a lot of funny bits throughout, particularly the shot of the jukebox that has nothing but Crawford's song on it. Downs, sort of a younger version of Dick Powell, adds spark to this spoof of the songwriting industry. Along with Moran, they parody other famous singers of the time, at one point with Downs sounding uncannily like Crosby. As this began and I scanned the cast list, I said to myself, "I bet that Charles Lane is in this!", and sure enough, he was. Putting out mostly B films that were bottom of the bill, Universal's formula for the most part worked. Fast, funny, filled with rhythm and romance, and not too much to task the brain. Crawford seems to sink every time that Jessie Ralph enters the scene. Whether it was the character's fear of his mom IR Crawford's realization that he was about to lose the scene is unknown, but being the son of another acerbic scene stealer (Helen Broderick), he was more than able to hold his own.
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