He Was Her Man (1934)

Truly Dreadful Film

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Straight-shooting Joan Blondell and Jimmy Cagney paired up in films like "Public Enemy" (1931), "Blonde Crazy " (1931), "The Crowd Roars" (1932), and Footlight Parade" (1933) and this film has probably the least chemistry between the two. That doesn't mean that the two of them don't do their usual good job, and that's really all you have in this easily forgotten film about a safe cracker on the run with a former prostitute who wants to settle down in a small fishing village with a tender nice guy (played by Victor Jory which is one of his rare good guy appearances).At this time in his career Cagney was having problems playing the tough guy killer, so he did a number of films in which he wasn't a criminal ("Picture Snatcher", "Winner Take All", "Here Comes the Navy") but none of these was really successful, so his non-crime dramas were interspersed with crime flicks and this is one of those examples. But nothing matched "Public Enemy", "Angels with Dirty Faces", "Each Dawn I Die", and "The Roaring Twenties", at least until his magnificent performance in "Yankee Doodle Dandy".The film is great for fans of Cagney or Blondell, but otherwise forgettable.

Man, don't you just love the dialog in these early pre-Code films? In 1931's "Blonde Crazy", right after Jimmy Cagney's character sets up Joan Blondell with a job as a hotel linen girl, he offers to bring up some 'hooch' and sandwiches! In an opening scene here, Flicker Hayes (Cagney) rats out a couple of his former hoodlum cronies to the police, stating that the warehouse job about to be pulled has a 'safe full of junk and nose candy'! Wow! Nose candy! Apparently the cop on the other end of the line knew what he was talking about, he didn't even bat an eye.This was the third film in which Cagney and Blondell had a relationship of sorts. The other two were "Sinners Holiday" (1930) and "Blonde Crazy" (1931). Actually, Blondell's former prostitute character Rose Lawrence is somewhat of a conflicted woman here, juggling her romantic possibilities between Jerry Allen (Flicker's assumed name in San Francisco) and Portugese fisherman Nick Gardell. For Victor Jory, the role of Nick appeared to be an uncomfortable one and generally outside his comfort zone. Or maybe I'm just used to seeing him as a tough guy or villain most of the time. The romantic type just doesn't seem to fit him.So when Jerry ditches Rose and she can't make her mind up about telling Nick she can't/won't marry him, it leaves all kinds of question marks in the mind of the viewer. I thought that was a pretty good speech she made Jerry when she said she was still pulling for him after he dumped her, making him feel every bit the heel he was. Which wasn't a stretch really, considering the fact that one of the hoods he set up got the chair after he took their fifteen large for the botched warehouse heist.What goes around comes around I guess when bad guys have a falling out. It would seem on the surface the picture had a happy ending with Rose and Nick finally hooking up. In just about any other picture you might have heard an off screen gunshot to know that Flicker's fate was sealed; here you had to read between the lines a little bit to realize he would never make it to the wedding reception.

I'm really glad to see the many thoughtful, positive comments about this film on IMDb, because it's one of my favorite pre-Code era films. The film books don't give it good marks: Halliwell ("not quite smart enough"), Hirschhorn's Warner book ("pallid stuff"), Homer Dickens ("not a very good film"), Maltin ("disappointing"). Don't believe these folks! Perhaps part of the problem is that this sentimental tale, while not an unfamiliar story, is nothing like the Cagney action films and comedies that preceded it. It just isn't what critics and viewers would expect. Interestingly, one critic, Howard Barnes, writing at the time the film was released, comes a little closer: "It is James Cagney's gift to execute a characterization with such clarity and conviction that (the film) becomes exciting and engaging through his participation ... he moves with fine restraint and assurance, making the screen drama a rather effective hodgepodge of melodrama and sentiment." Effective it is, but far from being a hodgepodge, the story is constructed unusually well for Warners at the time: no padding, no abrupt truncated bits, each sequence weighted properly in terms of the others. The melodrama is kept to a bare minimum: one can imagine a big action shoot-out scene at the end, with Cagney dying in her arms, and numerous other chances for standard melodrama, all avoided. Certainly, a key to the success of the film is Cagney's immensely subtle, nuanced performance; always charming, but never for a moment not a heel. As with the similar character in CEILING ZERO, Cagney knows to play the role as though he's a good guy and let the story tell the truth about the character. Blondell's performance, too, is extraordinary; the usual archetypical brassy blonde is here unexpectedly vulnerable. But the script is a full partner in these characterizations. Blondell's past is not glossed over: "I met him right here in this hotel, he was in the big city for a good time, the bellboy introduced us, you can figure it from there." There's Cagney's predatory request for sex in their first scene, taking advantage from the first moment of the fact that she likes him and that she's almost obligated and really has little choice. Of course, one looks ahead and can assume that Cagney will probably be killed and she'll marry Jory. But there are so many possible bad paths to this conclusion, and none taken here. In fact, it's a measure of the film's success that there's considerable tension built, and one isn't really sure during the watching exactly how it will play out. Not only is the story well told, but the dialogue is excellent, with the characters speaking their mind, though often indirectly. Exposition is masterfully integrated with the characterization in the dialogue. There's a large cast of fully drawn minor characters, too. Perhaps some would find Jory's Portuguese fisherman a bit much (though I am glad to see the IMDb comments are generally very favorable), but in the context the character works. And it's so nice to see Jory not the villain for once. What I love about the better early-Thirties films is that they don't point the viewer to an obvious interpretation of each scene, and their structure is fluid and not predictable in its details. The subtle moments don't call attention to themselves and may be missed by viewers used to a more straightforward style. This is a fine film with outstanding performances from Cagney and Blondell, and if you avoid it because of the "experts" you'll be missing a rewarding film.

There's an effortless polish to this Cagney Blondell team up unlike most of their many couplings fused with brash give an take. More subdued and perhaps worn out from life they project a restrained melancholy that informs this moody overachiever that deviates from the era's formula.Flicker Hayes (Cagney) takes it on the lam after he sets up two of his associates during a heist. A cop is killed and one of the crooks gets the chair for it. The other puts a contract out on Hayes head who has hooked up with mail order bride Rose (Blondel) in Frisco and follows her to a sleepy fishing village in order to lay low as well as deal with his conflicted feelings about Rose. Hit men in the mean time have been dispatched to the village.Well edited with imaginative composition director Lloyd Bacon does an excellent balancing act of keeping He was Her Man's outcome masked until the very end. Subtly and with great economy he establishes the relationship between Flicker and Rose then heightens the drama and tension by introducing a beyond decent hard working sensitive groom to be increasing the pressure on Rose. Cagney has the usual jaunty confidence but this time withdrawn from throwing punches and spraying lead to back it up. Victor Jory's sensitive understanding fisherman gives crucial weight to the film's ability to sustain itself by being a formidable opponent to Flicker. It is Blondell though amid her predicament without resorting to hysteria in conveying a lugubrious despair along with Bacon's tempered approach that gives He was Her Man a touch of morose beauty.