James Cagney ... Steve Collins



Bette Davis ... Joan Winfield

Stuart Erwin ... Tommy Keenan

Eugene Pallette ... Lucius K. Winfield



Jack Carson ... Allen Brice

Charter pilot Steve Collins is able to stay one step ahead of girlfriends who want to marry him and the bill collector who wants to repossess his plane. His latest charter is Joan Winfield, a madcap heiress who is eloping to Las Vegas with vapid bandleader Allen Brice. When Steve finds out that her oil tycoon father vehemently objects to the marriage, he is able to negotiate with him to kidnap his daughter and deliver her to him in exchange for enough money to save his plane and business. Unexpectedly the aircraft goes down in an ghost town inhabited by an idiosyncratic but lovable old man. Trapped in the desert, the improbable couple soon find that opposites attract.





I had always avoided this flick because I love both its stars and had read and heard not-so-flattering things about it. Finally caught up with it on the beautiful DVD transfer, and was either laughing or smiling from beginning to end, and believe me that's a rarity! How nice to see all those naysayers proved wrong. Granted, this is one of the most contrived and tortured "meet cute" setups in screwball history, but the plot mechanics are dispensed with quickly and it's all Cagney and Davis at their most sparkling from there on. I actually think it's best to watch this not knowing what happens, so I'll just say WATCH IT if you have a liking for either -- or both -- of these stars. And the Epstein-brothers' script is hilarious; it should be studied by today's comedy writers.