Blonde Crazy

Tough yet ebullient, James Cagney distilled the essential tone of pre-Code: cynical and pessimistic, yet charged with energy and high spirits. You don’t know whether he’s about to shoot somebody or break into a tap dance, smack a woman or crow “Huh-nee!” at her. In he takes full-advantage of the anarchic, free-wheeling mood; he’s uncontrollable and in full control, going from crafty schemer to world-class chump, slick operator to heartbroken lover. He’s ideally paired with Joan Blondell, who not only stands up to him with ease (bring a score-card to keep track of how many times she slaps him), but brings out an unexpectedly tender side of his cocky, wound-up persona. As they sit together in a night-club, he sums up the zeitgeist, telling her, “The age of chivalry is past. This, honey, is the age of chiselry.”

He starts as a lecherous, booze-peddling bellboy who dreams of better things; he keeps a scrapbook of successful rackets and sets out to fleece his fellow citizens. Blonde Crazy is all about what it means to be a chiseler, and what it means to be a sucker. It depicts a world in which everyone is working an angle, and anyone stupid or trusting enough to be conned deserves to lose his money.  Life is a continuous game of one-upmanship, a contest to see who can laugh last. At the heart of this giddy, riotous film a sliver of melancholy is embedded. Cagney and Blondell are two people so wary and skeptical, so wised-up, that they can’t embrace each other. Under the cover of fizzy comedy, Blonde Crazy makes the case that the cornerstone of American society is the confidence trick.

by Imogen Sara Smith