In one of the screen's most realistic romances, Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett play a cop and a waitress during the depression and prohibition who meet, crack wise, fall in love, argue some and fall more in love, all the time still cracking wise and arguing even more. There's a story, but it really doesn't concern these lovers, only surrounding his job and her sister, a newly married woman whose gangster ex-boyfriend escapes from prison and hides in her attic. The criminal story goes with the setting, the era and the hottest trend in pre-code films, but it is the dialog you will remember, one of the juiciest screenplays of the time. Bennett will delight you, cast against type as the tough-talking but ultimately tender good girl who can't believe that she's in love with a cop, joking with him about his flat feet yet never ceasing her love for him once she realizes he's serious about them being together. The two have an adorable love scene where they coo baby talk like affections at each other while their mind tells the audiences what they are really thinking.
There's also several scenes with an obnoxious drunk who won't go away, showing that even during prohibition, an obviously intoxicated man could roam the city streets and cops would pay him little mind except to insult him (and sometimes physically assault them). Veteran director Raoul Walsh whose credits go back to the early silent era, takes this delightful script, runs the camera man into a furious frenzy with the speediness of it all, and demands quick, non-static editing that moves along like a rat in the sewer.
There are so many fresh ideas in this film that you never feel bored, wanting to capture every delightful line that Tracy and Bennett throw at each other. It is ironic that 18 years later, these two stars would play a happily married couple in "Father of the Bride" with a beautiful daughter (someone named Elizabeth Taylor) where Tracy would also speak in character while his character remained silent.
There's also several scenes with an obnoxious drunk who won't go away, showing that even during prohibition, an obviously intoxicated man could roam the city streets and cops would pay him little mind except to insult him (and sometimes physically assault them). Veteran director Raoul Walsh whose credits go back to the early silent era, takes this delightful script, runs the camera man into a furious frenzy with the speediness of it all, and demands quick, non-static editing that moves along like a rat in the sewer.
There are so many fresh ideas in this film that you never feel bored, wanting to capture every delightful line that Tracy and Bennett throw at each other. It is ironic that 18 years later, these two stars would play a happily married couple in "Father of the Bride" with a beautiful daughter (someone named Elizabeth Taylor) where Tracy would also speak in character while his character remained silent.