Ed-Shullivan With film stars such as James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Alan Hale, Jack Carson and George Tobias featured in this film you can expect a highly entertaining romance/drama. Yes, the storyline has been re-done more than a thousand times over and over where boy (James Cagney as Biff Grimes) meets stunning girl (Rita Hayworth as Virginia Brush) and falls blindly in love by the attractive but more cunning woman, and where the third string girl (Olivia de Havilland as Amy Lind) is ignored and insulted by Biff even though she outwardly shows how much she cares for Biff and does not want to see him get hurt by the vixen Virginia.Biff's father old man Grimes (Alan Hale) is reluctant to find steady work and he would much rather foolishly try to win over a string of already married women that all live in Biff's neighborhood with his charm. Biff is a typical tough guy who is smitten with the out of his league Virginia who likes to play the field and take advantage of as many men as she possibly can date, dine then leave broken hearted at her front door step.For Biff, there is always the registered nurse Amy Lind who seems to appear and interfere with Biff's attempts at wooing the beautiful Virginia, who was responsible in the first place for Biff and Amy's first few dates. Yes this is a simple love triangle story seen many times before. the difference though is in the depth of star performances who signed on to make this particular film more than just a cut above its competitors. Although the film is now 77 years young at the time of my writing this review, and where horse and carriage was the preferred method of transportation, and gas lighting before electricity was more common, and the film is in black and white, it rates 4 **** out of 5***** stars in my review. I give the film a solid 8 out of 10 rating and I wish there were more films made like this today.Hint: Look for a young 27 year old George Reeves as the neighbor's college tough guy Harold in his turtleneck lettered sweater, more than ten (10) years prior to taking on his most famous and popular role in the syndicated (1952-1958) TV series The Adventures of Superman.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth (in the title role), and Jack Carson, and set in a simpler time (around the turn of the 20th Century), this slightly above average romantic comedy drama contains some unusual elements (Cagney's character is a budding dentist!) but is basically a story about appreciating what you have.Carson as Hugo Barnstead marries Virginia Brush (Hayworth), "stealing" her away from Biff Grimes (Cagney) who later marries Amy Lind (de Havilland), on the rebound. Years later, Biff gets to see the reality of what it would have been like to have been married to shallow Virginia (when he's asked to pull Hugo's tooth), and hence better appreciates his own wife.Alan Hale plays Cagney's "bar rat" old man; George Tobias plays a friend, Nicholas Pappalas; George Reeves plays a strapping young lad who scraps with the older Biff, and Una O'Connor also appears.Heinz Roemheld's Score was Oscar nominated. Twin brothers Julius and Philip Epstein adapted James Hagan's play "One Sunday Afternoon" (which had been filmed once before by Paramount with Gary Cooper) for Warner Bros., who had Walsh remake it as a musical in 1948 with Dennis Morgan, Dorothy Malone, Janis Page, and Don DeFore respectively (ironically, Alan Hale Jr. also appears).

Steffi_P During the golden age of Hollywood, a lot of pictures, especially the romances and musicals, took us back to another golden era – the final years of the 19th century. Not only was this the time in which many of the old guard were in their youth, it happens to be a good era for nostalgia in general. An innocent age before either world war and before the motor car had made the horse obsolete, a world perhaps best summed up by the sweet yet earthy character of its music.The Strawberry Blonde is itself a picture about nostalgia, albeit tinged with regret, as a man goes into a reverie about the friend and the would-be lover who wronged him years earlier. It is no surprise that the screenplay is by the Epstein brothers, Julius and Philip, whose best-known work Casablanca, a story with a very similar mix of regret and fondness for the past. However, with the flashback making up the bulk of its runtime, The Strawberry Blonde is by far the more indulgent of the two. Casablanca lives in the present while The Strawberry Blonde dreams of the past.The director here is Raoul Walsh, who according to the blurb on the back of numerous DVDs was an "action master". A more extensive look at his pictures though reveals him to be a bit of a romantic, with a real feeling for the warmth and intensity of human relationships. Whereas Warner's top director Michael Curtiz always emphasised sets and props, all but burying the actors, Walsh does the complete opposite. Take the scene in the bar where Alan Hale is drinking at the start of the flashback – each shot is made almost entirely of people, with folks lining the edge of the frame. It gives it a real cosy effect. Walsh also places us right inside the emotions of a scene by having actors facing the camera. When James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland are reunited towards the end, the opposing shots of them are not at forty-five degree angles to the lens as convention would dictate. Instead they are virtually looking straight out at the audience.And this is a cast worth focusing on. None of the four principle players – Cagney, de Havilland, Rita Hayworth and Jack Carson – are at their very best, but what's important is that they all seem to be enjoying their roles. Despite being in his 40s at the time, Cagney gives an exuberant portrayal of the younger Biff Grimes, and there is something almost childish in the way he sneers and fidgets his way through his first meeting with de Havilland. De Havilland herself has great fun playing an assertive free-thinker, and while very much against her type she is brilliant at bringing out that saucy flirtatiousness in her character. It's also nice to see Alan Hale playing a more sympathetic variation on his usual reprobate act, far more satisfying than the slightly villainous roles which for reasons I can't fathom he often ended up in. There's also a brief but memorable appearance by the great Una O'Connor.The Strawberry Blonde is by its very nature a movie with a lot of poignancy in it, balanced nicely with its tone of gentle comedy. The only real trouble is that some of the more tender moments are blunted by the punchy pace typical of Warner Brothers pictures, with a few scenes and shots not played out quite as long as they could have been. Still, the picture recovers much of its impact because its emotions are grounded in its atmosphere and its music. While not really a Musical, it is certainly a musical picture with a small "m". Diagetic music (real music in the film's world, as opposed to a background score) plays a major part not just in the story but in the construction of a scene – the strains of a band seeming to regulate or underscore every moment. Even what little non-diagetic music there is seems to dovetail from one of the familiar songs. And in the end, it is that magnificent waltz from which the title is derived that has the final word.

Michael_Elliott Strawberry Blonde, The (1941) ** (out of 4) James Cagney falls head over hills for a woman (Rita Hayworth) but she won't have anything to do with him so he marries another woman (Olivia de Havilland) instead. I haven't seen the original film or the future remake and while I know this version gets pretty good reviews it just didn't work for me. I thought the screenplay was rather weak and most of the comedy is rather forced and in the end unfunny. Cagney gives it his all trying to bring laughs but the screenplay doesn't do him any justice. Hayworth is cute in her role but sadly she's not in too much of the film. The real problem for me was de Havilland who really comes off bad. She's playing a bland character but her performance doesn't come off very well. She sleepwalks through the role and I just didn't want to see her on screen at anytime. Walsh's direction is nice but in the end this is a bland comedy all around. Alan Hale, Jack Carson, George Tobias, Una O'Connor and George Reeves co-star.