It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This very fun film starring James Cagney and Bette Davis really had me wondering about the person behind Ms. Davis' dialogue. I'll get to that later.Cagney plays Corrigan, a so-called "genealogist" who is in reality a con man. Of course he looks and acts like one, too. He and his group, which includes Allen Jenkins, try to bilk people out of their inheritances. Across the way is Wallingham (Alan Dinehart). He's a genealogist, too, in a very fancy office. He's immaculately dressed, and an immaculate, formal staff go from person to person offering them tea and magazines. As one can imagine, when Jimmy visits the office, he's impressed and wants an office just like that. His old secretary, Joan (Davis) works there now, but for ten months she worked for Corrigan. She thinks Wallingham has ethics.The plot concerns a woman found dead from poisoning. Homeless and hungry, she ate a partially eaten hamburger bun out of garbage but had no way of knowing the original recipient had been poisoned with it.Everyone laments her fate until they get a load of her coat. It is double-lined with bonds, jewels, gold, and the key to a safe deposit box. Wallingham doesn't know he has a mole in his office (Phillip Reed), who tips off Corrigan, and the race is on. Corrigan moves into new digs and starts dressing better to impress Joan, and he comes up with a honey of a scheme to retrieve this money from the woman's daughter, who is sure her mother's husband is dead.Very funny plot filled with twists and turns, and the film has great direction by Michael Curtiz. It moves like lightening. The dialogue is very funny. Cagney is not just a con artist - he plays it like he's really from the slums, which makes the difference between him and Dinehart even funnier. Also I swear he never stopped talking for the entire film.Davis is still, in 1934, moping along in these ordinary parts, wearing the blonde hair of the day and probably wondering when someone would give her a role to show off her talents. It happened soon after.Now for the dialogue. I started to wonder if someone was slipping incongruous lines into Davis' scripts. In Cabin in the Cotton, Davis utters one of the most baffling lines in film history, and actually she used it to close her interview with John Springer that toured the country: "I'd kiss you, but I just washed my hair."In Jimmy the Gent, her current boss, Wallingham, leans in for a kiss. Davis looks at him as if he's under a microscope and says, "I need a haircut."I wondered if this hair business had any significance in the early '30s. One of life's mysteries.

Con man Jimmy Corrigan (James Cagney) runs an agency that finds heirs of those who died without a will and he's not above providing phony heirs in order to collect his fee. His girlfriend (Bette Davis) didn't approve of his underhanded techniques so she left him to go work for his supposedly honest and respectable competitor. In order to win her back, Jimmy tries to prove he can go straight and become a respectable gentleman.Cagney and Davis are both enjoyable in this snappy comedy, each getting plenty of good lines. Cagney, with his bow-tie, crew cut, and nasal accent, is different than most other pictures I've seen him in from this period. Another fine example of what an underrated actor he was, even doing these WB programmers. They're backed up by a fine supporting cast including Allen Jenkins, Arthur Hohl, and Alan Dinehart. A fun one for fans of Jimmy and Bette.

I loved this amazing movie. I can't believe the amount of plot and dialogue weaved into 67 minutes by Cagney and Curtiz.Cagney just does not shut up, thankfully. He is brilliant. The idea that he was a shady geneologist who goes semi-straight and that Bette Davis was his foil was interesting. Lots of lauggh out loud scenes in this movie.

This is slightly superior to Blonde Crazy in that the stars have been given slightly livelier dialogue and that Bette Davis glows as a wise-ass blonde rather than Joan Blondell's put-upon blonde. Both are great, but some of the rip offs in this film are truly great and Allen Jenkins adds ten points to any film he's in. These golden age films have the writers that current day movies lack. No one steams anymore unfortunately. Cagney is a cock rooster and the world's a better place for seeing him go through his paces. I hope dvd brings all these movies back.