Superb Billy Wilder comedy with James Cagney as a Coca Cola executive who has to deal with the boss's hot daughter romancing a commie. It's very much in the style of The Front Page with a top level executive having to battle a series of issues - wife who wants to go home, daughter getting married, falling pregnant, parents arriving, MPs complicating, a nosy journalist, having to present the new son in law is a noble as in Lady for a Day, etc.
The characters are broad and big as befits the farce - Pamela Tiffin's spoiled rich girl, Horst Bucholtz's over the top hunk commie, Cagney's smart talking exec, the three comic commissars (right out of Ninotchka), the sexpot secretary, the gum chiewing kids, Germanic sidekicks, impoverished counts. The jokes come thick and fast.
The one aspect I didn't like was Cagney rooting his secretary (and having form on that). It was true to character I guess just felt unpleasant, made me feel sorry for the wife - better if the secretary was a sexpot but he loved his wife.
Red Buttons as a cameo as an MP.
Great fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment