morrison-dylan-fan Despite having heard about her being one of the biggest actresses in the "golden age" of Hollywood,I have somehow never got round to seeing a film starring Bette Davis.With Easter coming up,I started talking to my dad about picking up a James Cagney DVD as a holiday present for a friend.Catching me by surprise,my dad revealed that he had recently picked up a Cagney title,co-starring Bette Davis,which led to me getting ready to catch a glimpse of Bette Davis for the first time.The plot:California-Desperate to fill his radio show up,presenter Tommy Keenan pushes bandleader Alan Brice to get married to his oil heiress girlfriend, (who he has been dating for 4 days!) Joan Winfield.Caught up in a whirlwind romance,Brice & Winfield agree to Keenan's suggestion that they hire a plane,and get married in Los Vegas.Broadcasting updates on his radio show,Joan's dad Lucius K. Winfield starts ringing everyone up,to find out what his daughter has gotten herself into.Spending the last 10 years attempting to pay the debt for his plane,pilot Steve Collins is delighted to receive a call offering him a large amount of money to take a young couple over to Los Vegas for their wedding.Getting set to fly off with Joan & Alan,Collins suddenly gets a call from Lucius K. Winfield,who offers to pay Collins as much as he wants,as long as he stops his daughter from getting married.View on the film:Walking across the screen looking glamorous,Bette Davis gives an excellent, hilarious performance Joan Winfield.Wrapped in jewelry,Davis turns Joan into a prime cut diva,with Davis showing Joan clutching all her wealth,as Joan slowly discovers that daddy can out bid his daughter on anything,which includes her becoming a wife.Along with the sleek diva cut,Davis also displays a tremendously relaxed manner towards looking very silly in the films perfectly executed physical Comedy scenes,as Davis jumps from failing to jump out of a plane,to getting cactus pins stuck in her bottom.Stopping Davis from going down the aisle,James Cagney gives a fantastic performance as Steve Collins,as Cagney keeps Collins blue collar attitude burning whilst casting a wicked grin across his face,as Collins outwits everyone at each turn.Joining Davis & Cagney, Harry Davenport gives a delightful performance as "Pop" Tolliver,thanks to Davenport hitting every one of his very funny one liners,and also acting as the perfect match to Cagney's slightly saner Collins.Keeping Joan & Alan constantly on the lookout for a road to their weeding,the screenplay by Kenneth Earl/M.M. Musselman/Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein moves at a lightning fast pace,which gives each of the characters a killer line that allows them to have their moment in the spotlight.Along with stuffing the film full of one liners,the writers also give the title a charming warmth,as Joan & Collins find their mad-cap caper to unexpectedly bring them closer together,as Collins sets his sights on getting the cash on delivery.

mmallon4 Whenever I watch a classic movie with two love interest leads with astounding chemistry I'm often left in suspense wanting to see the two together at the end. The Bride Came C.O.D. is one such film.I find William Keighly to be a director of mediocre films; The Bride Came C.O.D. is a major exception. Past the not entirely electrifying opening, once James Cagney and Bette Davis where alone in the dessert and constantly bickering at each other I knew I was going to enjoy the hell out of this film. I was enjoying the presence of these two so much at one point I found some initial disappointment when a third character showed up despite the two being stuck in the wilderness. It felt like someone crashing at a party so it's a good thing that I did grow to like this character; the movie really does get better and better as it progresses.The movie takes place over a less than 24 hour time period and I'm pretty sure in real life two people couldn't go from hating each other to madly in love within a time period of this length, but The Bride Called C.O.D. is movie fantasy. The film has one pivotal scene which elevated the film from being great to excellent in which Davis tells Cagney in a tearful breakdown of how she has had everything handed to her in life. No longer was the movie just a laugh riot, I now had characters whom I was emotionally invested in. It's a testament to Bette Davis as an actress that she has the ability to tug the heart strings like that in an instant. I'm generally not a huge of Davis, I find her roles in numerous soap opera romantic tragedies off putting, thus it was a pleasant surprise to discover her natural ability for comedy. Perhaps that dame could have been undoubtedly the outstanding screwball of her generation!

writers_reign 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.

Ed Uyeshima Bette Davis and James Cagney were two of the most revered actors and dynamic personalities on the Warners Brothers lot during Hollywood's golden era, so it was inevitable that they team in a movie. This was actually their second pairing after a minor Michael Curtiz comedy, 1934's "Jimmy the Gent", but the mystery of their 1941 reunion directed by William Keighley is why they decided to do such a predictable screwball farce. The novelty value of their casting may be enough to engender interest in the 2007 DVD release, one of five Cagney movies packaged as "James Cagney - The Signature Collection". The slapstick-oriented story is a rehash of Frank Capra's classic "It Happened One Night", this time with Bette Davis playing the headstrong heiress running away from her wealthy father to marry a vainglorious cad.It's intriguing to see Davis play broad comedy since she seems to make little distinction between this and the intense approach she takes with her memorable dramatic roles of the period like "The Letter" and "The Little Foxes". As spoiled Texas oil heiress Joan Winfield, she manages to be funny almost in spite of herself. The silly plot has her father hiring pilot Steve Collins to kidnap Joan in order to bring her back home to Amarillo. The volatile combination of Joan's petulance and Steve's irascibility causes them to crash-land in the middle of the desert on the California-Nevada border. They end up in a ghost town inhabited only by a crotchety prospector, and needless to say, shenanigans ensue when Joan attempts to get back to civilization. Cagney is amusing but surprisingly subdued as Steve, perhaps in a gallant attempt to hand the picture to Davis. It's a nice attempt, but the lack of romantic chemistry between the two stars dilutes what could have been a breezy if still forgettable concoction. They would have been far more palatable as the battling reporters in Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday".Concerted efforts at slapstick are heavy-handed, especially a running gag with Davis landing her behind in various cactus plants, though one quick bit stands out - when Cagney kisses Davis, she responds with a characteristic slap, and his unexpected counter-response is knocking his forehead against hers like a coconut. The screenplay by the usually reliable Epstein brothers, Julius and Philip ("Casablanca") is snappy but just not funny enough to sustain the threadbare story, this despite a first-rate supporting cast - Eugene Palette in familiar blowhard mode as Joan's father, Jack Carson as her shallow bandleader fiancée, William Frawley ("I Love Lucy") as the smart-mouthed local sheriff, and Harry Davenport as the prospector. There are two quick cartoons and two vintage shorts included in the DVD to approximate a 1941 viewing experience at the neighborhood theater.