MartinHafer Considering that the film was directed by Raoul Walsh and starred Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, you would prob assume that the film would be better than this one. However, Tracy was not yet a star and Walsh was a ways off from being a top director, so in this film they obviously were given a second-rate script. Fortunately, despite the film's many deficiencies, they were able to make the most of a relatively dull film.Much of the movie seems virtually plot-less--with an exciting story only occurring near the end. Up until then, it seems to just meander--showing a dopey young cop (Tracy) making good again and again as well as courting a pretty young lady (Bennett). Despite the aimless direction, Tracy plays a likable dope who, after a while, really grows on you. And, fortunately, the last 10 minutes or so is interesting enough to at least let the film end on a high note.By the way, there IS a bright moment in the film where, out of the blue, Tracy's character talks about a movie he just saw..."Strange Innertube"! This is actually referring to the Gable/Shearer film "Strange Interlude"--an odd little film made by rival studio, MGM, in which the characters act AND you can hear what they are thinking. In this cute parody of the MGM film, suddenly you can hear what Tracy and Bennett are thinking as they being making out--it's very cute and certainly the high point in an otherwise odd and slow film.Worth watching, certainly, but far from the best work of all concerned. It's mostly a curiosity that I can only strongly recommend to Tracy fans who want to be able to say they've seen all of his work.

Michael_Elliott Me and My Gal (1932) ** 1/2 (out of 4)A New York cop (Spencer Tracy) fights with and then falls in love with a waitress (Joan Bennett) but things take a bad turn when her father and sister get involved with a gangster (George Walsh). This is a sometimes interesting pre-code that starts off as a (bad) comedy but then turns into a romance before once again changing into a drama. I do have to question the screenplay for trying so many things as the film seems extremely uneven and in the end I had to see it as a major disappointment considering the talent involved. The biggest problem is the screenplay that is all over the place and this includes a pretty bad start where we have to follow a drunk around for a non-stop gag that just keeps going and going and going. I'm going to take stab and say that this scene with the drunk runs at least ten minutes and then he keeps coming up for the next ten minutes. The joke pretty much has him not paying for meals, asking the cops to arrest a fish for stealing his worm or just being plain annoying. I'm really not sure if Walsh was having a kick with this stuff or what but it should have ended up on the cutting room floor. The stuff dealing with the gangsters is pretty uninteresting as well because they're brought into the story due to Bennett's sister, someone we really don't care about and since it isn't actually happening to Tracy's girl, there's no added drama thrown in. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why the movie was jumping around so much and a lot of the ending just feels tacked on for no good reason other than to have some action. What makes the film worth viewing are the performances by the two leads. The two work very well together as they both come off quite charming and entertaining. The snappy dialogue they get to throw at one another is a plus as is a nice sequence where they talk to one another while their "thoughts" also get told. George Chandler and Henry B. Walthall have small roles as well.

Boba_Fett1138 Raoul Walsh was one of the greatest directors of the '30's and '40s, mainly because of the reason that his movies were always such of a high quality and so entertaining to watch. This is a movie from before the real glory days of Walsh and it seemed like he was still having difficulties with this movie to find its proper style and approach.The different story lines with the different characters just don't always connect with each other. The movie also takes too long with its story to set up things and introduce its characters. The movie is already a real short one and it wastes too much time with its set up. It doesn't even become fully clear what this movie is truly going to be about until like half an hour before the end.At first this movie even seems as if its going to be a comedy but not a really funny one though. It then picks a romantic approach and after that it turns more into a thriller/drama. This of course also makes the movie a fairly disjointed one and also works out bad for the movie its story, as well as its style.It's mostly the last halve hour that still makes this movie a perfectly watchable enough movie. It's also then that the story becomes truly solid and the movie also turns into a more original one to watch. Before that the movie was mostly just being formulaic.It really isn't Raoul Walsh best movie, also in terms of directing, editing and camera-work. It's a cheap and simple looking movie that lacks in style and a good main clear approach of the story. I can see and understand what Raoul Walsh tried to achieve and tried to blend some of the most successful genres of its time into one movie. It's an approach he much better executed in his later movie "The Strawberry Blond" and I'm sure that there are a couple of more better examples to mention but I haven't seen all Raoul Walsh movies obviously. It's not as if this movie is an horrible attempt and is one bad movie but it nevertheless can't be seen as a successful attempt either.The movie also features Spencer Tracy in one of his earliest roles. His acting seemed modern for its time and he did a great job in this movie.A movie that luckily gets better toward its end.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

max von meyerling ME AND MY GAL is a bit run of the mill cinema except for the intrusions of several neat bits of business. Spencer Tracy plays Danny Dolen a fresh guy and wise guy cop just assigned to the docks. While the big deal on the docks is the arrival of some gangsters from Havana, Tracy and a detective assigned to tail the gangsters are sidetracked by a tiresome, vaudeville broad, drunk. Drunks, known as "pxxs acts' were an old theatrical tradition. Sydney Chaplin, Charlie's brother did a fine pxxs act (see THE BETTER 'OLE [1926]). This is just terrible.The drunk falls in the water, Tracy saves him and is instantly promoted to detective. The local cafe on his beat has a snappy cashier played by Joan Bennett. The gangsters just admitted to the US have plans to robe the safe deposit boxes at the bank where Bennett's sister, Marion Burns works. It seems as though she once had a thing with one of the gangsters (George Walsh, director Raoul's brother) but is now just about to marry George Chandler(!). She marries him when Walsh is arrested and sent away ruining the gangster's plans. Burns moves in with Chandler and his paralyzed and mute father (Henry B. Walthall). Chandler goes to sea and Walsh breaks out of jail. Burns still has a thing for Walsh (she knows what's in which safety deposit box) and hides in her attic. Tracy is able to track down Walsh and protects Burns from her involvement in the bank robbery.It really not much of a picture. George Chandler was given a chance at a meaty role but as he can just pull his idiot face and speak perfunctory dialog its clear why he would be used in so many pictures as a bit player, often uncredited. He didn't have enough character to be a character actor but did really great bits in literally hundreds of films. Here, if he had any presence at all, he would have been brought back for a key piece of business in locating the gunman in the attic. Instead the plot is resolved another, less likely way.The interesting bits are the snappy dialog between Tracy and Bennett, sort of a symphony in slang as they try to out hard boil each other. Latter a similar dynamic but amongst middle class types speaking the King's English would be featured in the Thin Man series. This is an early example of verbal foreplay. This boils over at one point to where they have a go at it on the cafe's counter top scattering various solid objects. This was years before Lang and Nicholson had it off in the kitchen in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1981).There is also a scene in which Tracy says he went to see a funny kind of a movie the other day, Strange Inner tube. There in a tight two shot without any cuts where Bennett and Tracy play a parody of STRANGE INTERLUDE (1932) complete with their inner thought heard on the soundtrack. Previously the play had been parodied by the Marx Brothers in ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930).J. Farrell MacDonald has a few big scenes. His major traits here seem to be getting drunk and tell pejorative Irish jokes. Bert Hanlon, as a dumb flatfoot detective whose act here recalls that of Ditto (Edward Brophy) who followed Tracy around repeating what he just said in THE LAST HURRAH (1958).In all, merely acceptable as entertainment on a rainy night's double bill in 1932, remarkable only for the sharply played repartee between the leads. A repartee which crackles because of the ease and naturalness that people could express their feelings in this pre-code picture.