The Bride Came C.O.D.
Tags: comedy, romantic

Plot synopsis:
Pilot Steve Collins (James Cagney) agrees to help bandleader Alan Brice (Jack Carson) and heiress Joan Winfield (Bette Davis) elope. Steve then contacts her father Lucius (Eugene Pallette), offering to prevent the marriage and deliver her to him in return for enough money to get out of debt.
Steve tricks Alan into getting off the aircraft, then takes off with Joan. When an irate Joan tries to jump out of the aircraft, Steve sees that she has her parachute on backwards and is forced to crash land near the ghost town of Bonanza. The next morning, they encounter the lone resident, "Pop" Tolliver (Harry Davenport). Joan escapes into an abandoned mine. When Steve follows her, they are trapped by a cave-in. Steve finds a way out, but hides it from Joan on the advice of Pop. Believing that they are going to die, Joan re-examines her frivolous life with great regret. Steve admits he loves her, but when he kisses her, she tastes food on his lips and realizes he has found a way out. They exit the mine to find that Alan has tracked them down, accompanied by a Nevada judge.
Steve does not object when Alan and Joan get married, hiding the fact that Bonanza is in California and therefore the wedding is invalid. The "newlyweds" board another aircraft, but when Joan figures out that they are not really married, she parachutes out to be reunited with Steve.

Review: But it wasn't trying to be, and you do get a host of Hollywood legends, all in top form, doing exactly what they did best.Airplane lovers will also appreciate the potpourri of period light passenger aircraft, and the scenery and sets are top notch.The chemistry between Cagney and Davis is great, there's no scene stealing and it's just plain fun to watch.
When I watch a movie, I like to laugh, and that's why this is my favorite movie of all time.It's the only pairing of James Cagney and Bette Davis, and the sparks do fly.
You might call this a variation on the theme of "It Happened One Night." James Cagney plays a cargo pilot asked to aid in an elopement that would result in a disastrous marriage for an heiress.
It's true the critics thought that this film was beneath the talents of Davis and Cagney, but time proves otherwise.
Some films just seem to age like a bottle of fine wine which makes this movie play better today than it did when it was first released.
So, the story goes, our Bette was doing a lot of tear jerker's and I guess Warners thought it was time for her to take a breather and do a light comedy for a change of pace.
The musical score by Max Stiener is just fine and dandy and the funniest part in the film is when Davis deiced she's going to run away from Cagney in an automobile that hardly can run after Henry Davenport locks Cagney up in the town jail.
The car starts down the hill with the song In My Merry Oldsmbile being played and Cagney laughing so bad that you have to laugh with him as the car makes all kinds of noise and sputtering when it finally turns over, and I'm surprised that somehow they didn't find a way for our Bette to fall on top of another cactus plant!
Even though Davis said that they really didn't like making this movie, it seems to me, when viewing it, that Davis and Cagney, with the rest of the cast were having a lot of fun making it!
but this one is a classic on merit alone.Davis and Cagney were the top two Warner's actors at the time and had fought their own respective legal battles with the studio in the years prior, as well as being very good friends.This film catches them at the tops of their game, just being allowed to be silly and have fun in a movie no one really expected much out of.The formula works and though the pacing isn't the best, hang-in because it's worth it.Saturday afternoon popcorn film..
Despite the lack of originality in the plot, Bette Davis and James Cagney find a totally unexpected comedic chemistry in this rare teaming of Warner Brothers biggest male and female stars.
Enjoyable screwball comedy with Bette Davis and James Cagney, helped out by a great supporting cast that includes Eugene Palette, Jack Carson, George Tobias, William Frawley, Harry Davenport, and many others.
They had a premium stable of actors to choose from and many times they're more enjoyable to watch than the leads.Davis has a lot of fun with this role and, while her comedic talents were always so-so, she shines here.
This film is the sort of stuff that Cary Grant and Carole Lombard would have been right at home with.Davis is paired for the second and last time with James Cagney.
The Bride Came C.O.D. was far better material.Davis is a young heiress who is being pursued by bandleader Jack Carson and columnist Stu Erwin who wants the story of their elopement.
This is after Carson has chartered Cagney's plane.Knowing that Davis's father Eugene Palette wants the marriage stopped at any cost, Cagney hits upon a mad scheme to kidnap Davis and fly her to Palette.
Cagney and Davis worked very well with each other and Cagney was one of the few actors she didn't have a disparaging remark about.It's entirely possible that players more experienced in the screwball comedy genre might have made The Bride Came C.O.D. a classic.
But Cagney and Davis and the marvelous cast of some of the best supporting players around, made a pretty funny film in any case..
This was fairly entertaining film with so-so comedy, good enough for one viewing with the two big-name actors in the lead: James Cagney and Bette Davis.
Bette Davis and James Cagney were two of the most revered actors and dynamic personalities on the Warners Brothers lot during Hollywood's golden era, so it was inevitable that they team in a movie.
The slapstick-oriented story is a rehash of Frank Capra's classic "It Happened One Night", this time with Bette Davis playing the headstrong heiress running away from her wealthy father to marry a vainglorious cad.It's intriguing to see Davis play broad comedy since she seems to make little distinction between this and the intense approach she takes with her memorable dramatic roles of the period like "The Letter" and "The Little Foxes".
They would have been far more palatable as the battling reporters in Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday".Concerted efforts at slapstick are heavy-handed, especially a running gag with Davis landing her behind in various cactus plants, though one quick bit stands out - when Cagney kisses Davis, she responds with a characteristic slap, and his unexpected counter-response is knocking his forehead against hers like a coconut.
The screenplay by the usually reliable Epstein brothers, Julius and Philip ("Casablanca") is snappy but just not funny enough to sustain the threadbare story, this despite a first-rate supporting cast - Eugene Palette in familiar blowhard mode as Joan's father, Jack Carson as her shallow bandleader fiancée, William Frawley ("I Love Lucy") as the smart-mouthed local sheriff, and Harry Davenport as the prospector.
Yet it is highly entertaining and energetically acted by two tyros of the silver screen, Bette Davis and James Cagney.The story of an heiress kidnapped by an aviator, the movie spends most of its time in a ghost town whose sole inhabitant is an elderly prospector who, as things turn out, proves highly resourceful.
There is a running joke about Miss Davis continually falling on a cactus, which is only mildly funny; but what makes the film so fun to watch is the shifting perspectives, as it goes underground for a while and then way above ground, in Cagney's plane.
"The Bride Came C.O.D" is sustained by the performances of James Cagney and Bette Davis, who both manage to overcome a weak screenplay.
Cagney and Davis have brilliant on- screen chemistry and they should have been paired up more often and in better movies.
The scenes of Cagney and Davis alone in the desert and then spotting a seemingly deserted town are probably the best in the film.
A lot of the film is tiresome and the comedy "Torrid Zone" is much better (also with James Cagney)..
James Cagney and Bette Davis were giants of the screen for sure, and they did well in their roles here, as Steve Collins and Joan Winfield.
Eugene Palette, Harry Davenport and Jack Carson were especially good in their roles as Lucius Winfield, Pop Tolliver and Allen Brice, respectively.
A pilot (James Cagney) is hired by the father of a young woman (Bette Davis) to derail her plans for elopement.
Rich ditzy Joan Winfield (a woefully miscast Bette Davis) is engaged to be married to stupid egotistical Allen Brice (Jack Carson looking lost).
Her father (Eugene Palette) is determined to stop the marriage and has her kidnapped by pilot Steve Collins (James Cagney.
They crash land in the desert and hate each other but (sigh) start falling in love.This seems to be getting a high rating from reviewers here only because Cagney and Davis are in it.
This is a fun film to watch and it's a great film if you want to see a wonderful selection of supporting actors--including George Tobias, Jack Carson, Eddie Brophy, Eugene Palette, William Frawley and Henry Stephenson--not to mention Bette Davis and Jimmy Cagney in the leads.
With all these great actors, the film couldn't help but be enjoyable and fun, but it could have been a lot better had the plot hadn't been a bit hard to believe AND was filled with silly clichés.
It's worth seeing, but don't expect a great example of a screwball comedy (such as HIS GIRL Friday, BRINGING UP BABY or ARSENIC AND OLD LACE--all significantly funnier and better written films of the era)..
Bette Davis is in good form playing an oil heiress who's hoping to elope with her band-singer fiancé, instead getting kidnapped by money-hungry pilot James Cagney, on hire from her very own father.
I'll admit that young Bette Davis really blows my hair back, the comic dialogue is often quite witty, and the cast is like a who's who of good character actors from the 30's and 40's.
William Frawley, Eugene Palette (with his barrel voice and barrel body) and Stu Erwin are great additions to the cast, but one of my favorite character actors -- Harry Davenport (as in the doctor in "Gone With The WInd") really shines here as a character quite different from what he usually plays.
Jack Carson should have been a bit disappointed with his role...sort of wasted, although essential to the story line.The plot is screwball, so somewhat unbelievable, but this is a film to savor for the performances (particularly the chemistry between Davis and Cagney) and the setting (a busted gold mine town).
Bette Davis plays an oil heiress about to marry dorky band-leader Jack Carson.
But when Cagney flies away with only her, things get going.As I understand it, this movie came out towards the end of the screwball comedy era; maybe it had pretty much run its course with WWII just around the corner.
This is the kind of screwball comedy that cries for the light touch that Carole Lombard and William Powell had, not for the teaming of JAMES CAGNEY and BETTE DAVIS who were much more at home in more solid material.I never had any fondness for this film with its silly story about a kidnapped heiress and a man only doing the job for the money but predictably falling in love with the stubborn girl.
I don't believe Bette had much fondness for the film either which has her performing slapstick stunts that are supposed to be terribly funny, such as falling on a cactus plant twice.The nice cast doesn't help and they all look as though they know they're stranded in the desert along with the plot.
JACK Carson, STUART IRWIN and EUGENE Palette are among the Warner stock company that try to keep this one afloat.Summing up: Only for ardent fans of Davis and Cagney..
I sometimes think that Bette Davis made more bad movies than good.
Bringing Bette in for a light comedy romp was a bad idea to begin with, but then to bring in James Cagney as her comedic foil is more laughable than the lines in the movie itself.
Past the not entirely electrifying opening, once James Cagney and Bette Davis were alone in the desert and constantly bickering at each other I knew I was going to enjoy the hell out of this film.
Bette Davis and James Cagney are professionals and so is director William Keighley.
All of that seems irrelevant when one looks at the finished product; it is clear to see that this is a great screwball comedy and it works better than a lot of other films that attempt to cover similar territory..
The hilarity begins when Davis realizes she's been hijacked by Cagney and attempts to parachute out of his airplane.After recently viewing this several times, for the first time, it because curious to me why Bette Davis wasn't cast in many more comedies.
Two remarkable professionals, Bette Davis and James Cagney, unite for this Warner Brothers comedy, "The Bride Came C.O.D." Cagney is a pilot who is hired by Joan's (Davis) father to deliver her -- unmarried -- to him after Joan announces she is en route to marry a bandleader, Alan Brice (Jack Carson).
The plane goes down when Joan puts a parachute on backwards and tries to jump out - in doing insane manuevers to keep her in the plane, it gives out, and the two get stranded near a ghost town which has one survivor (Harry Davenport).Davis looks great and is obviously having a ball.
Since I'm still relatively new to this era's cinema, I'm still in a sense experiencing Jimmy Cagney and Bette Davis "for the first time." Part of me wants to write-off yesterday's hype as today's retrograde nostalgia, but the genius of these actors is just too evident.This film essentially takes place in a ghost town.
But Pop Tolliver (Harry Davenport) is the ghost town's hotel impresario who turns out to be Steve Collins's (Cagney) co-conspirator.It was fun to see Jack Carson, whom I knew as Ward Willoughby in the Powell & Loy vehicle "Love Crazy"(1941).
("The name's Ward Willoughby!") He also played the cop who caught the papers in the old Wheeler and Woolsey flick "On Again, Off Again" (1937).This movie is consistent and more or less realistic, to the extent that a madcap comedy can be so, but there was one thing I never fully understood: What happened when Joan (Davis) left Allen Brice (Carson) for Steve (Cagney)?
Although the prevailing attitude seems to be that it's a weak effort, I personally think that "The Bride Came C.O.D." is a wonderful screwball comedy, starring the talented James Cagney and Bette Davis.
(DO NOT read any further if you have not yet seen this film.) Following a whirlwind courtship, heiress Joan Winfield (Davis) and singer/bandleader Allen Brice (Jack Carson) decide to fly from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for an elopement, against the wishes of Joan's father (Eugene Palette).
Struggling to make a go of his airline service, pilot Steve Collins (Cagney) schemes to earn a buck by intercepting the elopement and flying the unmarried Joan into Amarillo, TX, where her father awaits with cash in hand.Here are my favorite moments from "The Bride Came C.O.D.".
and Philip G.), with a great cast that includes James Cagney, Bette Davis, Jack Carson, Harry Davenport, George Tobias, Eugene Palette, Stuart Erwin, William Frawley, Edward Brophy, Harry Holman, and Herbert Anderson, "The Bride Came C.O.D." is a delightfully wacky comedy.
The cast is loaded with stars of the era lead by James Cagney and Bette Davis.
An air search finds the abandoned airplane and the race is on between the father who wants to stop the impending marriage of Bette to a bandleader played by Jack Carson, a real ham, of course Jack is in the race, an LA sheriff, and other assorted types.
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were every bit as big as Davis and Cagney, and look how It Happened One Night turned out - an all-time classic.
Cagney, who was a great comedy actor, just seems out-of-sync with his costar, Davis.
The script provides some decent lines and gags, but the delivery seems better suited to drama than comedy.Part of the problem is the soundtrack, which, like the delivery of Davis and Cagney, seems more suitable to a light drama than a comedy.Jack Carson, who played similar roles throughout his career, has more capably handled very similar material.
While it's nowhere approaching the best of either stars (Jimmy Cagney and Bette Davis) wonderful careers, this is certainly no blotch on their resumes and is quite a lovely screwball comedy.
Davis is the heiress getting married to a guy who's just after her money (Jack Carson), and Cagney is the pilot who has been charged by her father to kidnap her and stop the wedding.
This is Warner's version, featuring 2 of it's brightest stars: James Cagney, as Steve Collins, and Betty Davis, as Joan Winfield, ably supported by a bevy of secondary stars.
During their time together Cagney and Bette have developed some feelings for each other, but she's still OK to marry Jack.
The contrast between Steve's first-shown "date" and his eventual wife "Joan Winfield" (Bette Davis, playing "age 23" here for at least her tenth year running) is stunning.
The Bride Came COD stars James Cagney and Bette Davis.
COD has James Cagney play a Steve Collins, a cargo pilot who arranged to meet the girl's father in Amarillo, where he could deliver her, COD, for a payoff that will let him pay what he owes on his airplane.Bette Davis is Joan Winfield, daughter of oil millionaire Lucius Winfield, played magnificently by the gravelly-voiced Eugene Palette.
For me, the best scenes were those involving Pop Tolliver (Harry Davenport), as demonstrated in the understated handling of his first breakfast meeting with the pair ('You take bacon too.'), and later his surreptitious partnership with Steve Collins (Cagney) to outwit the authorities.The 'C.O.D.' business of the title references the basic plot element of the story - Collins, seeing an opportunity to pay off his airplane, haggles with Joan Winfield's father (Eugene Palette) to deliver his unmarried daughter before an elopement seals the deal.
Opposite James Cagney (away from gangster or serious tough guy roles, although his pilot is a bit of a tough guy), Davis is trying to escape her tyrannical father (Eugene Palette) to elope with staid radio star Jack Carson, and Cagney is hired by pops to kidnap her.
Then, Carson and Palette arrive, along with cop William Frawley, and everything ends up in a farcial delightful conclusion where Davis meets her biggest desert nemesis once again: an ill-place cactus that keeps greeting her in a most inconvenient place.While Davis had done comedy before ("The Golden Arrow" and "It's Love I'm After"), this was the real first time where she got to let her hair down and play dirty, and she is very funny.
Palette, Carson and Frawley also offer amusing performances, but it is Davis, Cagney and Travers who are given the funniest material.