James Cagney, shortly after his star-making performance in The Public Enemy, is a scheming bellboy who shows the ropes to incoming chambermaid Joan Blondell. His pre-Code sexual horseplay prompts what must be a record number of face slaps, but this 1931 Warner Bros. comedy doesn’t really sting until Cagney ditches the hotel to become a full-time con man and recruits Blondell as his accomplice: their biggest suckers are pillars of society indulging their secret appetites, and the biggest crook in the story turns out to be an investment banker. Roy Del Ruth directed; with Louis Calhern and a young Ray Milland.
Blonde Crazy
1 hour 19 min • 1931
