The Strawberry Blonde (1941)

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

As The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wisely categorized, The Strawberry Blonde is actually a musical. True, it could also be aptly described as a romantic comedy or even as a comedy-drama. But with its feast of period songs, I see it primarily as a musical in which both the period nostalgia and even the songs themselves are gently spoofed. Walsh's bright, crisp direction deftly employs a dazzling variety of camera angles and fluid camera movements. These, combined with sharp film editing, effectively disguise the screenplay's otherwise rather obvious stage origins. Walsh also had the supreme advantage of an extremely generous budget which ran to large, lavishly appointed sets that could never be duplicated even in the roomiest Broadway theater. As the volatile, rather bitter dentist, James Cagney seems perfectly cast, while George Tobias (in the Roscoe Karns role) makes an ideal stooge in the opening scenes where so much depends on instant information dialogue. Between them, Cagney and Tobias lay this essential groundwork not only with care, precision and subtlety, but with an unobtrusive professionalism that adds up to sheer entertainment. On the other hand, although Rita Hayworth plays the title role, she makes a rather late entrance. Even Jack Carson, perfectly cast as the obnoxious Hugo "whom we all know and love", precedes her. Fortunately, the ground has now been well prepared. When she finally appears, Rita certainly lives up to her reputation. She's simply great. Our only beef is that we would like to have seen her role extended even further. As the critic for the weekly trade paper, Variety astutely commented: "Rita Hayworth blossoms like a rose. Clothed in stunning period costumes and gorgeously photographed, she gives her role a vivid quality and her personality a showcasing which will enormously increase her importance." My only beef is that the first two-thirds of The Strawberry Blonde where the script's accent lies firmly in the realms of musical comedy, offers superior entertainment to the last third where the action takes a more dramatic turn. Director Raoul Walsh seems unable to decide in what mood to play the final scenes, whereas his confident approach of nostalgic caricature and farce seemed such a perfect choice for Acts One and Two.

I thought it was going to be OK for an underrated movie but in fact it was quite boring and just plain dull. I just think it wasn't a good idea for the lead character Biff to be a dentist as such and like falling for a blond headed woman won't save his skin of being just to get out of his misery. The storyline and the characters seem all over the place, maybe if there were less characters, I would understand the storyline really easily. I can say I'm glad to not have watched this more than 10 minutes as its just crap..

While James Cagney earned his reputation with gangster-related roles, I've never been a particular fan of him in that genre. It's when he stepped out of the gangster-genre that I found him quite appealing, particularly in roles where (as critic Bosley Crowther praised him in this film) he was pleasantly or appealingly "pugnacious".Although for a while it seems as if this is simply a light romance, it gets deeper and more involved when we realize that the Cagney character will go to prison for graft that he approved as a business partner to the sleazy, blow-hard Jack Carson. Carson is really the guilty one, but he gets off scot-free; Cagney was simply ignorant "rubber-stamping" his approval of what ended up being building code violations, including one that led to the death of his own father. Cagney takes the fall. But, comes out of prison a dentist! After getting out of prison, in a dental emergency, Cagney gets called to pull a tooth for Carson, and realizes he has the chance to kill Carson via nitrous oxide. He doesn't, and over the second half of the film we understand that rather than being a light romantic comedy, this is actually a beautiful love story.Cagney shines here, and is rather balanced in that he is subtle, when need be, but his usual slightly over-the-top when it is called for. He is balanced very nicely by Olivia de Havilland as the girl he first dislikes, but ultimately falls in love with and marries. Jack Carson plays his role as a wheeler-dealer to the hilt. Rita Hayworth, not usually a favorite of mine, is very good here as the sweet and ultimately not-so-sweet strawberry blonde.Notable character roles are played by Alan Hale, Sr., as Cagney's father (there's a wonderful scene with him under the influence of the laughing gas), and George Tobias as a Greek friend and neighbor. And, you'll learn a bit about turn-of-the-century dentistry and the use of leeches! Highly recommended, and perhaps one for your DVD shelf.

Strawberry Blonde, The (1941) ** (out of 4) James Cagney falls head over hills for a woman (Rita Hayworth) but she won't have anything to do with him so he marries another woman (Olivia de Havilland) instead. I haven't seen the original film or the future remake and while I know this version gets pretty good reviews it just didn't work for me. I thought the screenplay was rather weak and most of the comedy is rather forced and in the end unfunny. Cagney gives it his all trying to bring laughs but the screenplay doesn't do him any justice. Hayworth is cute in her role but sadly she's not in too much of the film. The real problem for me was de Havilland who really comes off bad. She's playing a bland character but her performance doesn't come off very well. She sleepwalks through the role and I just didn't want to see her on screen at anytime. Walsh's direction is nice but in the end this is a bland comedy all around. Alan Hale, Jack Carson, George Tobias, Una O'Connor and George Reeves co-star.