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The tricks of press-agentry which Authors Wilson Mizner and Robert Lord have thought up for Cagney, even the few which are carefully outlined, can scarcely be considered monuments of ingenuity. The best is his stunt of advertising a vanishing cream, which does not vanish, as a fat remover, on the assumption that purchasers will lose weight trying to rub it in. Unlike Lee Tracy's somewhat similar picture, The Half Naked Truth, Hard to Handle depends less upon journalistic exaggerations about an exciting profession than upon the personality of its principal. Cagney, talking and galloping a little faster than usual, is still wholly successful in the character part which he discovered and which, with eloquent repetition, he has made peculiarly his own. Good shot: Lefty Merrill getting the idea for the 18-day diet, when he has been jailed for using the mails to assure the purchasers of Florida lots that they can get their money back by growing grapefruit.
When Warner Brothers announced the title for this picture—Cagney's first since he "retired" after prolonged contract bickering eight months ago "to study medicine"—it sounded like one of Producer Jack Warner's wry wisecracks. Reemployed four months ago, Cagney is now working apparently contentedly on The Mayor of Hell. Last week Warners announced that his $1,750 a week salary had been cut.
The Secret of Madame Blanche
(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). A list of pictures about devoted mothers who, deprived of their children, resort to careers of vice:
Madame X (MGM), Ruth Chatterton (son).
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (MGM), Helen Hayes (son).
Once a Lady (Paramount), Ruth Chatterton (daughter).
The Strange Case of Clara Dean (Paramount), Wynne Gibson (daughter).
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (Warner), Ann Dvorak (son).
Frisco Jenny (Warner), Ruth Chatterton (son).
Blonde Venus (Paramount), Marlene Dietrich (son).
The Secret of Madame Blanche puts Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer even with Paramount. Irene Dunne gives a very satisfactory performance as Madame Blanche, who suffers even more acutely than most of her predecessors. When her husband (Phillips Holmes) commits suicide because he is incompetent to support her, her father-in-law (Lionel Atwill) not only fails to send her money but takes away her gurgling child. The child grows up to be a soldier, sets out one night to have a good time. Propelled by laws of coincidence peculiar to stories like this one, he goes to the very cabaret where Irene Dunne, now a dignified harridan, is acting as mistress of ceremonies. She is able to take the blame when he murders the father of a girl he is trying to seduce. Most inevitable shot: the son (Douglas Walton) denouncing his grandfather in court, where the truth comes out.