COMEDY ROMANCE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3247, 2 April 1943, Page 5

COMEDY ROMANCE

“THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D.’*

PROGRAMME AT REGENT

JAMES CAGNEY—BETTE DAVIS

The path of true love, never smooth, according to well-authentic-ated legend, led Jamas Cagney along three rugged routes recently, so that he become ready to rest himself in the cool, quiet evenings of his New England, U.S.A., farm. He started his vacation as soon as he disposed of a romance with Bette Davis, the bride in his newest Warner Bros, picture, “The Bride Came C.0.D.,” which will show at the Regent Theatre on .Saturday and Monday. ■ “You are,” said Miss Davis, just before kissing him, “a cheap and vile and deceitful liar.” That’s the kind of thing . Cagney has had to put up with in his recent films. His tenderest love scene in “City for Conquest” was achieved only after sixty rounds of prize-fighting a day for five days before the camera. Immediately after that, Cagney started in pursuit of ’Rita Hayworth in “The Strawberry Blonde.” He lost her entirely. He got Olivia de Havilland, which seems like -a fair trade, but only after a tedious series of black eyes and five years in the pen. In his’first attempt at love-making with Bette Davis in “The Bride Came C.0.D.,” Cagney kissed her lightly on the lips, got soundly slapped in the face. The Cagney-Davis love making in. “The Bride Came C.0.D.” takes place in an abandoned gold mine, deep in. . the earth. Rotted timbers support sagging boulders. A cave-in has blocked their exit. A small fire, .burning fills the tunnel with smoke. They are convinced that they are there to die. In this setting, romance blossoms. Bette calls Jimmie a deceitful liar, but she shows she doesn’t mean it by lifting her head to be kissed. “It was like the fusing of two white-hot metals into one alloy,” according to the authors of the script. A minute later they were fighting again. A vacation was what James Cagney I needed, far from the allure of Ann .Sheridan, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth and Bette Davis, Let him who would make love to these' ladies ■be forewarned—a man takes an awful beating before he gqts anywhere with them.