STRAWBERRY BLONDE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 182, 18 December 1942, Page 17

STRAWBERRY BLONDE

(Warner Bros.)

‘THis is a funny picture and a sentimental one, and much of the fun and much of the sentiment arise directly

from the fact that it is set in those dear dead days near the turn of the: century which are still embalmed in many living memories or in the pages of family photograph albums. It is a curious but undeniable fact that whereas, for instance, the fashions of the Caroline or Regency period were perhaps the most ‘extravagant in history they don’t seem half as funny to us as those that Father and Mother wore at their wedding. Strawberry Blonde may not start the average picturegoer philosophising in exactly this vein, but its lush Edwardian atmosphere of bustles, straw-hats, gas-lamps, horse-carriages, and the fight for Women’s Rights will probably give him a good deal of nostalgic enjoyment ~ almost as much as that to be derived from the able and energetic performances of James Cagney, Rita Hayworth, Olivia de Havilland, and Alan Hale, and from Raoul Walsh’s cheerful direction of a Broadway hit entitled One Sunday Afternoon (it was filmed under that title in 1934 with Gary Cooper and Fay Wray a$’stars). Suitably enough, the story is told. in retrospect, presenting the reminiscent musings of a struggling dentist (Cagney) one Sunday afternoon when a street band ‘plays "The Band Played On" while he is waiting to pull the aching molar of a crooked alderman (Jack Carson) who not only stole his girl but was instrumental in sending him to gaol for’ five years. The dentist is gloating over the. possibilities of revenge with gas’ when »the band cuts in with a tune that is full of painful and sentimental associations-the chief of them being the strawberry blonde of the neighbourhood (Rita Hayworth) who dropped him in order to marry the villain, and thereby caused him to marry her less spectacular girl-friend (Olivia de Havilland) on the bounce. Working overtime, the dentist’s memory then carries him back over the even more bitter experience of being made a criminal scapegoat for the other fellow’s crooked dealing as a building. contractor. But his wife waits patiently forthe prison gates to open; and when the dentist that Sunday afternoon se@s’ what the years have done to his enemy and to the strawberry blonde (who is. no longer a delicacy), he >she has, after all, had much the better of the bargain. Instead » of murdering: the fellow with too much gas, pulls: his: tooth-without any gas at a Even the» gentlemen who , ordinarily prefer strawberry blondes probably agree with the dentist that, so far as choice of consorts goes, in picking. the brunette Olivia de Havilland, he picked the winner. Rita Hayworth is the’ kind to catch the eye, but Miss de Havilland is thes type toa stay in the mind, especially when, in an effort to be daringly modern, she confides to the nonplussed young dentist that her mother was one of the original Bloomer Girls, her aunt

was on the stage, and she _ herself .considers marriage old-fashioned-and backs up each of these startling revelations with*a high-voltage wink. Her. panic retreat from modernity when the disillusioned dentist suggests that she put her views into practice is another highlight of an almost consistently entertaining film: so is the scene where Cagney practises dentistry on his happy-go-lucky Irish father (Alan Hale). Cagney himself is, of course, something of a special taste-I know some people who can’t stand him-but personally I relish his tough, human dynamo style of: acting. And it’s pleasant, for a change, te meet him out of a crime picture.