Cebalord
Very best movie i ever watch
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Dynamixor
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
SanteeFats
Pretty standard fare for the time. The cast is loaded with stars of the era lead by James Cagney and Bette Davis. I have always had a problem with Bette Davis as a love interest. She is a heck of an actress but I never have found her attractive. Anyway the humor is not bad and got laughs a few times. You can see the end developing after the plane crash when they spend the night out in the open and then find a ghost town with one old timer still around. The old timer arrests James as a kidnapper and then learns he is not. The old timer and Bette rehab a thirty year old abandoned car. They get it running but there is no way the tires would not have rotted in that time. They crash it and Bette lands in another cactus patch, heh, heh!! An air search finds the abandoned airplane and the race is on between the father who wants to stop the impending marriage of Bette to a bandleader played by Jack Carson, a real ham, of course Jack is in the race, an LA sheriff, and other assorted types. The first to arrive is from the LA county sheriff played by Fred Mertz (William Frawley)!! Next to fly in are four reporters, then Carson shows up with a judge to marry the two. There is some chicanery to keep Bette from being found but she is eventually found, thinking they are in Nevada the judge performs the wedding in the ghost town, then they find out the town is actually in California. They couple don't believe him, take off for LA, Bette sees a pillow that shows the town is in California so jumps from the plane to get away from Carson. Dad has finally shown up and things work out as I thought, Bette and James end up hitched, dad is happy, and all ends well except for poor ol' Jack Carson.
jarrodmcdonald-1
Bette Davis and James Cagney are professionals and so is director William Keighley. They may have had to brave sweltering temperatures in Death Valley, but they have focused on the material and turned out an above-average picture. The script is rather intelligent and has a lot to say about the conditions these characters (and actors) are experiencing.Regarding the actual production of the film, it is said the stars did not want to do the project, that they did not get along, and that a rewrite was ordered. All of that seems irrelevant when one looks at the finished product; it is clear to see that this is a great screwball comedy and it works better than a lot of other films that attempt to cover similar territory.
William222
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.
phd12166
Baffling how this, of all Davis and/or Cagney movies is set on the side burner. It's a riot! Cagney does indignant acts to Davis that make for the charms of both lead actors to be brought out. The public already new that Cagney could play well in comedies; but, with Bette Davis usually performing such serious characters, the surprise is how Davis pulls of playing in this comedy so well. She's really at the mercy of the script that Cagney riotously acts out.Davis is playing a runaway daughter of a tycoon; Cagney plays the plotting private pilot who has schemed to take her home to Daddy for a meager dividend. The hilarity begins when Davis realizes she's been hijacked by Cagney and attempts to parachute out of his airplane.After recently viewing this several times, for the first time, it because curious to me why Bette Davis wasn't cast in many more comedies. Was there anything she couldn't do? (She even sang and did more comedy in a dance during her starlit spot in, "Thank Your Lucky Stars!").