You'd expect some fun, wisecracks and excitement from a Warner Brothers Cagney-Blondell movie but you will be sorely disappointed. This film has a very different feel, the usual sense of optimism and hope is replaced with fatalism and an acceptance that life doesn't always get better. This doesn't make this film easy to enjoy. Lloyd Bacon's uncharacteristically turgid and moody direction also doesn't make this something you will be instantly captivated by.
If you can however stick with it, it is rewarding because the story about broken people hopelessly trying to make something of their lives is quite moving. The problem is the writing; it sacrifices plot for character development. Through what seems a long running time where very little happens you realise that these characters are all very lonely people desperate for comfort and fooling themselves that good times are just around the corner. You know that their dreams are never going to become real. In a way it's saying to you: this isn't a movie, it's real life.
Cagney is not his usual loveable, cocky rogue in He Was Her Man, his false bravado and transparent charm is wafer-thin but he genuinely wants to be a good person. You just know that he's too weak to be the person he wants to be.
Joan Blondell is extremely somber, nothing like the 'sassy dame' we've become accustomed to. Her acting in this is exceptional, really exceptional - her sadness and longing for happiness which she knows is impossible floods out of the screen at you. Each flutter of her eyelids breaks your heat. Her performance is so touching that you wish that you yourself could do something to help.
If only this beautifully acted film was a bit more exciting it would have been special but as it stands it's just not that entertaining.
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