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"My ideal," the titular beauty found and lost, not Browning's Cristina but a New York coquette remembered one Sunday afternoon. "The Band Played On" triggers the memory, the protagonist (James Cagney) was once part of the audience smitten by the society girl (Rita Hayworth) who would glide past the barbershop in all her glory. The aspiring dentist makes ends meet as a saloon bouncer, his roughneck persona crumbles somewhat when hearty ol' Dad (Alan Hale) comes in for a hug. "Oh, cut it out, will ya? I'm supposed to be a tough guy." The double date set up by the sharpie (Jack Carson) hooks him up instead with the muse's gal pal, a forthright suffragette (Olivia de Havilland) with her own façade of cigarettes and winks. "That will show them we're good girls and they can't trifle with us." "Well, for goodness sake! What did we come here for if not to be trifled with?" Raoul Walsh's fond 1890s like a John Singer Sargent comic-strip, with a jocular-pensive glow and a telling proximity to The Magnificent Ambersons. Stiffed with a bill, the hero is given a shovel and pointed to a row of equine rumps; elated with a date, he does a cartwheel right into a trash can. The inspiring vista with the Statue of Liberty in the distance is enhanced with a pile of banana peels, the lion at the zoo dissolves to a moon-faced tenor bellowing "Love Me and the World Is Mine" at the beer garden. Novelty of spaghetti, timelessness of fisticuffs, a sneaking sort of grace as the lights come up at the park. Happiness turns out to be the best revenge, the skunk gets his tooth yanked out all the same. "Well, that completes the picture." Cagney beating up a passel of Yalies is the glad closing sight, the only logical capper is a singalong. With George Tobias, Una O'Connor, George Reeves, Lucile Fairbanks, Edward McNamara, Helen Lynd, and Herbert Heywood. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |