Boy Meets Girl

Boy Meets Girl

Director: Lloyd Bacon Cast: James Cagney
James Cagney
, Marie Wilson
Marie Wilson
, Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Bellamy
, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Lloyd Bacon
Boy Meets Girl

Boy Meets Girl

Director: Lloyd Bacon Cast: James Cagney
James Cagney
, Marie Wilson
Marie Wilson
, Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Bellamy
, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Lloyd Bacon

DVD

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Overview

Once a staple of summer stock and community theatres, Bella and Samuel Spewack's Broadway farce Boy Meets Girl dates rather badly when seen today. The 1938 movie version is also a bit mildewed, though it is saved by the dynamo-like energy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The stars are cast as Robert Law and J.C. Benson, a pair of iconoclastic Hollywood screenwriters based upon Ben Hecht and Charlie McArthur. Cynically declaring that every film can be boiled down to "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl," Law and Benson drive their studio-executive bosses crazy with their zany irreverence. Their pet target is bigwig C. Elliot Friday (Ralph Bellamy), a delicious take-off of 20th Century-Fox prexy Darryl F. Zanuck. Friday orders the boys to concoct a screenplay for cowboy star Larry Toms (Dick Foran), whose popularity is on the wane. Upon making the acquaintance of pregnant, unmaried waitress Susie (Marie Wilson), Law and Benson hit upon a brilliant scheme: they'll transform Susie's baby into a child star and team the kid with Toms in his latest epic ("based on an original story by William Shakespeare"). Complication piles upon complication, reaching a high point of hilarity when the baby gives Larry Toms the measles. Ronald Reagan appears briefly as a radio announcer covering the Hollywood premiere of Law and Bensen's newest masterpiece. Boy Meets Girl was originally conceived as a Marion Davies vehicle, with the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson playing the screenwriters, but things changed radically (and for the better) when Davies' sponsor William Randolph Hearst huffily pulled his Cosmopolitan Pictures unit off the Warner Bros. lot.

Product Details

Release Date: 10/14/2014
UPC: 0888574092801
Original Release: 1938
Rating: NR
Source: Warner Archives
Language: English
Time: 1:27:00
Sales rank: 50,258

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
James Cagney Robert Law
Marie Wilson Susie
Ralph Bellamy E. Elliott Friday
Ronald Reagan Announcer
Dick Foran Larry Toms
Frank McHugh Rosetti
Bruce Lester Rodney Bevan
Penny Singleton Peggy
Dennis Moore Miss Cruz,Miss Crews
James Stephenson Maj. Thompson
Bert Hanlon Green
Harry Seymour Slade
George Hickman Office Boy
Cliff Saum Smitty
Carole Landis Commissary Cashier
Elliott C. Friday Ralph Bellamy
Curt Bois Dance Director
Otto Fries Olaf,Olaf
John Harron Extra
Hal K. Dawson Wardrobe Attendant
William Haade Actor
Jim Nolan Young Man,Young Man
Jan Holm Nurse
Vera Lewis Nurse
Rosella Towne Nurse
Paul Clark Happy,Happy
Eddie Conrad Jascha
John Ridgely Cutter
Peggy Moran New York Operator
Nanette Lafayette Paris Operator
Janet Shaw Los Angeles Operator
Bert Howard Director
Bill Telaak Bruiser
Dorothy Vaughan Nurse
Pat O'Brien J. Carlyle Benson
Pierre Watkin B.K.
Clem Bevans Actor
Sidney Bracey Actor
Loia Cheaney Nurse
Bruce Lister Rodney Bevan

Technical Credits
Lloyd Bacon Director
Samuel Bischoff Producer
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