The Public Menace

Thanks to TCM, I discovered this movie the other night. What a treat: a fine cast with wonderful timing, a clever plot, and lots of zippy dialog. The producers managed to take what could have been a string of movie clichés and elevated them to a consistently rewarding comedy/drama. Besides that, there are loads of snappy old cars and a couple of chase sequences. It's short and sweet; be sure to catch it when you can.

Also, be sure to catch the Dillinger reference: the gangster wants the news hounds to take his picture with his arms around the cop that is guarding him. The cop refuses, saying that he "saw another arms-around picture lately." That refers to the infamous picture of Dillinger posing with Indiana cops that turned into a P.R. nightmare for them.

Reporter George Murphy is covering a liner's docking whe Jean Arthur offers him a great story about a suicide. Her price is he marry her so she can enter the country. It turns out to be a phony, so Murphy is fired and the two begin an erratic hike towards divorce, hampered by a total lack of money.

There are certainly enough grace notes in this movie to keep it very watchable through the end, including gangster Douglas Dumbrille in a shoot-out with the cops in a newspaper office while the reporters write the story from under their desk. The script also has a goodly number of too-cute moments, starting with the outrageous statement that Miss Arthur is a foreigner; I know that Plattsburgh is out of the way unless you're planning a land invasion from Canada, but still...

Even so, the always charming eccentricity of Miss Arthur overcomes the grouchiness of Murphy in this watchable screwball comedy.

I'll have to watch it a few more times to be sure but I think I love this movie.

Here's what's to love:

-GREAT screwball comedy. Jean Arthur is her delightful self, really well-cast, she perfectly toes the line between funny and ditzy that can be difficult for a leading lady to do in a newspaper-crime story like this one. She uses her whole vocal range, but in a free-spirited character who never gets as worked up about things as everyone else, she remains calm and completely watchable, not to mention likable. Without her this movie would have been a pretty decent, well-conceived newspaper-crime comedy, but she makes it a screwball comedy, she has enough gusto to open up the romance angle, without overdoing it, so that it's a film you can not only enjoy, but really adore.

-A pretty tight plot, in a genre where this is often lacking. As of press time I've only watched it once, but it seemed actually pretty smart the first time through. Not like Adventure In Manhattan, which was just a little too much departure from reality to really get into, this starts off looking like your typical overblown, hammy newspaper man-in-search-of-story plot, but then it dips into an amusing lull wherein you keep expecting somebody's master plan to be revealed, but though the dialog is in places as sharp as The Front Page or His Girl Friday, it isn't one character pulling all the strings, and the plot is actually a little more believable, I feel, because it unfolds by a series of fairly natural accidents.

-George Murphy. I didn't think he'd win the film any points with me, given that I don't know him at all really, but he kept it together very well as a newspaper reporter who doesn't want to get involved with a woman(whenever Cary Grant's characters resorted to this I always felt like it was its own punchline, but from this average-looking smart alec, you actually believe it). He's wise not to try to steal the scene from the glib and giggly Arthur, but there were a couple places where, given Arthur's irresistibility, I felt he could have been a little more hilarious when playing his various changes of heart. But overall, I think he did a really solid job that doesn't leave me wishing another actor had played it, as I sometimes (often) do.

"The Public Menace" is enjoyable...and stupid at the same time!! Yes, some of the film is just awful....but overall it's worth seeing.

When the story begins, Red (George Murphy) has been sent by his editor to cover a seemingly unimportant story for their paper. However, Red meets a kooky manicurist, Cassie (Jean Arthur) who desperately wants to be allowed to leave the cruise ship where she works. Here's part of the dopey part of the film...she's supposed to be a Greek national and cannot disembark in the US because it seems she hasn't a passport or something along those lines. So, she concocts a lie....telling Red she has a HUGE story and she'll give it to him if he marries her. Then, she'll give him the info and he can quietly get a divorce....and she'll get to stay in the USA. Well, this isn't exactly the way immigration law works, but more importantly she has nothing...no clues...no story. Plus, while he's dealing with her nonsense, a REAL big news story is missed by Red....and he's fired.

Much of the rest of the film is good....but this setup is just nuts. After all, Arthur seems 100% American by her look and accent. Anyone believing she's Greek is nutty. Likewise, the whole marrying Red only minutes after she meets him in exchange for a story....nutty. But once they are in the good 'ol USA, things go improve. There's a wanted escaped gangster...and this angle isn't bad. If the film had just entirely remade the first 15 minutes or so, it could have worked well. Arthur, as usual, is great...just not Greek!

By the way, for a film made during the new, toughened Production Code, the ending gun battle is incredibly violent!

The Public Menace (1935)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland comedy from Columbia has a Greek woman (Jean Arthur) meeting a reporter (George Murphy) on an ocean liner and asking him to marry her so that she can get off the boat. The reporter agrees but only because she gives him a fake tip on a gangster (Douglass Dumbrille), which causes him to get fired from his job. Now married and with no job, the reporter does his best to bring down the gangster and his "wife" wants to help. For just a 72-minute movie there's quite a bit going on in this film but sadly none of it is all that entertaining. This was clearly just meant to be a programmer, something to put on the lower half of a double bill, because there's really not much working it in. Director Erle C. Kenton could certainly handle material like this but he's really not given too much to work with. The screenplay doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy with some gang activity put in or if it wants to be a gangster picture with some laughs. The entire set-up is just beyond bizarre and everything dealing with the marriage seems forced. This is especially true early on as the couple tries to save enough money so they can get a divorce but of course something happens. I thought Arthur was good in her role but to be honest she was much too good to be appearing in something like this. Murphy pretty much sleepwalks through his part and has very little chemistry with the lead. Dumbrille isn't the person you'd select for a gangster but he isn't too bad. THE PUBLIC MENACE isn't a horrible film but it's quite pointless.