Boy Meets Girl (1938)
-
36% of users liked it
(77 ratings)
Once a staple of summer stock and community theatres, Bella and Samuel Spewack's Broadway farce Boy Meets Girl dates rather badly when seen today. The 1938 movie version is also a bit mildewed, though it is saved by the dynamo-like energy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The stars are cast… More Once a staple of summer stock and community theatres, Bella and Samuel Spewack's Broadway farce Boy Meets Girl dates rather badly when seen today. The 1938 movie version is also a bit mildewed, though it is saved by the dynamo-like energy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The stars are cast as Robert Law and J.C. Benson, a pair of iconoclastic Hollywood screenwriters based upon Ben Hecht and Charlie McArthur. Cynically declaring that every film can be boiled down to "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl", Law and Benson drive their studio-executive bosses crazy with their zany irreverence. Their pet target is bigwig C. Elliot Friday (Ralph Bellamy), a delicious take-off of 20th Century-Fox prexy Darryl F. Zanuck. Friday orders the boys to concoct a screenplay for cowboy star Larry Toms (Dick Foran), whose popularity is on the wane. Upon making the acquaintance of pregnant, unmaried waitress Susie (Marie Wilson), Law and Benson hit upon a brilliant scheme: they'll transform Susie's baby into a child star and team the kid with Toms in his latest epic ("based on an original story by William Shakespeare"). Complication piles upon complication, reaching a high point of hilarity when the baby gives Larry Toms the measles. Ronald Reagan appears briefly as a radio announcer covering the Hollywood premiere of Law and Bensen's newest masterpiece. Boy Meets Girl was originally conceived as a Marion Davies vehicle, with the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson playing the screenwriters, but things changed radically (and for the better) when Davies' sponsor William Randolph Hearst huffily pulled his Cosmopolitan Pictures unit off the Warner Bros. lot. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Lloyd Bacon
- Genres
- Classics, Comedy
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Aug 27, 1938 Wide
Critic Reviews
-
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Good version of the play that should have been better.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
No Featured Audience Ratings Found…
Currently unavailable on Flixster
Also available on
Other Retailers
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
Subscription Services
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
Cast
-
James Cagney
as Robert Law
-
Pat O'Brien
as J. Carlyle Benson
-
Marie Wilson
as Susie
-
Ralph Bellamy
as E. Elliott Friday
-
Frank McHugh
as Rosetti
-
Dick Foran
as Larry Toms
-
Ronald Reagan
as Announcer
-
Paulie Clark
as Happy
-
Penny Singleton
as Peggy
-
Harry Seymour
as Songwriter
-
Bert Hanlon
as Songwriter
-
James Stephenson
as Maj. Thompson
- Clem Bevans
-
Curt Bois
as Dance Director
- Sidney Bracey
-
Eddie Conrad
as Jascha
-
Hal K. Dawson
as Wardrobe attendant
-
Elliott C. Friday
as Ralph Bellamy
-
Otto H. Fries
as Olaf
- William Haade
-
John Harron
as Extra
-
George Hickman
as Office boy
-
Nanette Lafayette
as Paris operator
-
Carole Landis
as Commissary Cashier
-
Bruce Lister
as Rodney Bevan
-
Vera Lewis
as Cleaning woman
-
Peggy Moran
as New York Operator
-
John Ridgely
as Cutter
-
Cliff Saum
as Smitty
-
Janet Shaw
as Los Angeles Operator
-
Rosella Towne
as Nurse
-
Dorothy Vaughan
as Nurse
-
Pierre Watkin
as B.K.
-
Bill Telaak
as Bruiser
-
Loia Cheaney
as Nurse
- Jan Holm
-
Bert Howard
as Director
-
James Nolan
as Young Man
-
Dennie Moore
as Miss Crews
