Lady of New York

Reporter George Murphy is covering a liner's docking whe Jean Arthur offers him a great story about a suicide. Her price is he marry her so she can enter the country. It turns out to be a phony, so Murphy is fired and the two begin an erratic hike towards divorce, hampered by a total lack of money. There are certainly enough grace notes in this movie to keep it very watchable through the end, including gangster Douglas Dumbrille in a shoot-out with the cops in a newspaper office while the reporters write the story from under their desk. The script also has a goodly number of too-cute moments, starting with the outrageous statement that Miss Arthur is a foreigner; I know that Plattsburgh is out of the way unless you're planning a land invasion from Canada, but still... Even so, the always charming eccentricity of Miss Arthur overcomes the grouchiness of Murphy in this watchable screwball comedy.

Thanks to TCM, I discovered this movie the other night. What a treat: a fine cast with wonderful timing, a clever plot, and lots of zippy dialog. The producers managed to take what could have been a string of movie clichés and elevated them to a consistently rewarding comedy/drama. Besides that, there are loads of snappy old cars and a couple of chase sequences. It's short and sweet; be sure to catch it when you can. Also, be sure to catch the Dillinger reference: the gangster wants the news hounds to take his picture with his arms around the cop that is guarding him. The cop refuses, saying that he "saw another arms-around picture lately." That refers to the infamous picture of Dillinger posing with Indiana cops that turned into a P.R. nightmare for them.