Touches You

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

In his early years of stardom, James Cagney had a volatile working relationship with the brass at Warner Brothers. He rebelled against the interchangeable tough guy vehicles routinely foisted upon him, and if this standard issue product is any example, he had every right to grumble. It's a dour, slackly paced retread of "They Knew What They Wanted," and probably the least representative, most disappointing of Cagney's early showcases.As directed by Lloyd Bacon, this one doesn't even have the saving grace of the star's dynamic energy. Perversely, he plays a low-key, laid-back ex-convict (with polished diction, no less) on the lam from vengeful gangsters who hide out among Portuguese fishermen on the California coast.Perhaps Cagney's moribund performance was his way of blowing a raspberry at the lame material (earlier that year, he shaved his head in protest over the far superior "Jimmy the Gent"), and his lack of enthusiasm seems to have been shared by his co-stars. Joan Blondell, leading lady to Cagney in seven previous films, turns in one of her rare sullen performances as a hooker torn between the ex-con and a naive villager. It's a dispiriting spectacle to watch the Depression-era's most vivacious good-time girl reduced to a cloying, lachrymose sob sister, not to mention an ignoble end to a memorable screen partnership.

This movie would merit a ten were it only for Victor Jory's depiction of an affable, sincere, ingenuous soul. But it haply has the merit of having been released just prior to the sanctimonious moral codes having been foisted on us. Cagney is ebullient and bursting from every scene with the passion, vigor and elan that made him justly renowned. The beauty of Joan Blondell is only enhanced by her realistic depiction of a good-hearted woman who has necessarily made her way in the Depression by bestowing sexual favors. It is refreshing truth .

Warner Brothers Pictures were very prolific and they kept James Cagney busy in the early 30s. Pictures usually had snappy dialogue and swift pacing in his early career, but not this time! Very preachy and sentimental story with little for Cagney to do. I guess I can't get used to him in mustache. Backgrounds and locales interesting, especially early gas station/cafe with slot machine. Look for John Qualen(trying to sell ring in Casablanca) as Dutch, the local yokel.

With James Cagney and Joan Blondell headlining the cast, what more can you want? A good screenplay, that's what! The disappointing ending had me shaking my head, especially after I finally got used to Cagney in a mustache. And I never figured out who the "he" in the title was. Either Cagney, with whom Blondell falls in love after he seduces her in San francisco and in Victor Jory's house, or Jory himself, who was going to marry Blondell knowing she used to be a prostitute. Jory plays a Portuguese fisherman, but his accent is very phony, and none of the supporting cast was exceptional. There's some good suspense at the end but the film let me down. Still, I did like watching the two stars.The film was released a few weeks before the production code was more rigorously enforced. Blondell's character caused the Catholic Church to place the film on its "condemned" list.