Boy Meets Girl (1938)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Bella Spewack (play) and
Sam Spewack (play) ...

Release Date:

27 August 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be pregnant...

Plot Keywords:

Cowboy | Baby | Waitress | Screenwriter | Hollywood

Cast

James Cagney	...	Robert Law
Pat O'Brien	...	J. Carlyle 'J.C.' Benson
Marie Wilson	...	Mrs. Susan 'Susie' Seabrook
Ralph Bellamy	...	C. Elliott 'C.F.' Friday
Frank McHugh	...	Rossetti
Dick Foran	...	Larry Toms
Bruce Lester	...	Rodney Bowman
Ronald Reagan	...	Radio announcer at premiere
Paul Clark	...	Happy Seabrook, the baby
Penny Singleton	...	Peggy, manicurist
Dennie Moore	...	Miss Crews, Friday's secretary
Harry Seymour	...	Green, songwriter
Bert Hanlon	...	Otto Slater, songwriter
James Stephenson	...	Major Thompson

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #4156)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The original award-winning play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 27 November 1935 and had 669 performances. The opening cast included Jerome Cowan and Allyn Joslyn as Benson and Law, and 'Everett Sloane' as Rosetti. There were 2 revivals, in 1943 and 1976.

Quotes:

Rossetti: I've got Larry Toms waiting in your office to hear your story. Come on.
Robert Law: We haven't got any stories.
J. Carlyle 'J.C.' Benson: Tell him one anyway.
Robert Law: Okay. Once there was a fairy princess who lived in a broken down castle, on a broken down river, with a broken down aunt. In fact, she was a broken down princess.

Movie Connections:

References The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)

Soundtrack:

With a Pain in My Heart (and My Heart on My Sleeve)

Too bad it doesn't live up to its simple title...

Madcap screwball comedy doesn't get any madder than BOY MEETS GIRL which has JAMES CAGNEY and PAT O'BRIEN as two oddball screenwriters who play their annoying characters to the hilt. DICK FORAN plays an actor looking for a good story (lots of luck), claiming he gets fan mail from a lot of people who can't even write! FRANK McHUGH, RALPH BELLAMY and MARIE Wilson fill out the Warner contract players cast, all of them doing their usual schtick but with less funny results than usual. The script is nothing more than a fable about a Hollywood that never existed except as a playground for madness on a grand scale with all of the fast talking players caught up in an impossibly silly script about the search for a "new" story for Foran.

Not much can be said for Cagney and O'Brien--the ham is really overdone--and even RALPH BELLAMY overdoes the role of the studio head who has three films in production and doesn't know what's going on.

If you can stay with it through the first half-hour, this is your kind of screwball comedy. As for me, I had to tune out before it was over.

Trivia note: A bright moment has Bellamy declaring: "Do you boys know you're making more money than the president of the United States?"