A rare chance to compare/contrast Hollywood minimalist & maximalist icons as Gary Cooper and James Cagney tackle the same role eight years apart.* Here, it’s Coop as discontented, middle-aged dentist Biff Grimes looking back at the girl who got away, lovely Fay Wray, swept into a hasty marriage by supposed best pal Neil Hamilton to a life of fame & fortune while Gary ‘settles’ for sweet, but unexciting Frances Fuller. (Busy on B’way, this is a rare Hollywood gig for Fuller.) Loaded with charm and ‘Gay ‘90s’ period detail, there’s just enough plot to support Cooper’s slow-burn as he thinks back on how he was consistently one-upped by Hamilton, while he waits to take revenge on his old pal, unexpectedly in town after a decade and in need of a dentist to pull an aching tooth. Naturally, a twist at the climax settles all grievances, but the film functions nicely as a mild, rather than wild, stroll in the park with plenty of opportunities for Coop to snub the girl who’ll prove to have been the right choice all along. Director Stephen Roberts, who died young in ‘36, let’s some scenes go on too long (the play was still running on B’way with Lloyd Nolan as lead when this opened), but builds rhythm in a series of playful outings for the foursome. Good quiet fun, with Cooper graying up handsomely for the bookend scenes and giving out with a passable baritone (in harmony!) on a few singalongs with second-best pal Roscoe Karns. Winning stuff, even with a reel and a half missing from modern prints.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Cagney's version, Raoul Walsh’s THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Jack Carson co-star) is a far better developed film, though perhaps a bit too knowing in the manner it polishes up period flavor & charm. Walsh gave it another turn, this time as a musical under its original title with Dennis Morgan, Don DeFore, Dorothy Malone & Janis Paige/’48 (not seen here).
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Interesting that Cooper & Cagney were two of Orson Welles’ favorites. Coop because you thought nothing was happening on set (and Welles watched him being filmed up close), only to see it all show up (and more) when projected on the screen. And Cagney because he broke every rule on what was supposed to constitute film acting (in scale, projection, larger-than-life characterization, speed), it wasn’t how BIG the acting was, but how TRUE.
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