Ignore the haters that didn't appreciate this unpolished gem from the gold digger era. It's Cagney in a romantic comedy as a low-grade con man, against a mother-daughter team in matching outfits looking to bag a rich husband. When his scams profit, mother Ruth Donnelly thinks he's a perfect mate for daughter Mary Brian, but when his fortunes turn as they often do, the ladies switch polarity. Donnelly never misses an opportunity to kick him while he's down, meanwhile Brian's passion for underdogs cools when he's in the black. If you're looking for Cagney as a toughguy gangster this isn't it, although the film takes some timely, self-aware potshots at Cagney's image including grapefruit jokes. Here his schemes are mostly harmless like rigging a dance contest, and he's as likely to be scammed as he is to make a big score. I can see how his fans might be disappointed, but Cagney was also a song-and-dance man and a self-depricating comedian. Gold digger comedies, like crime-genre and noir, are filled with amoral characters and backstabbing frenemies but played for laughs. It's easy to forgive shady motives when the leads are wholesome Dick Powell and sunny Priscilla Lane. James Cagney on the otherhand has electricity and an edge that plays for darker characters. Here he's forced to rely on charm and guile - you may be waiting for him to bust up the joint and rub out his enemies, but gold digger heroes are lovers not fighters. This isn't his best fit, but "date movie" Cagney is the nicer guy who doesn't smash citrus in women's faces.Ruth Donnelly anchors the meandering plot as the most gold digger-y character in a gold digger comedy. What kills the film is the casting of elegant Mary Brian who mostly stands around looking pretty. Her "inverse barometer" reactions to Cagney's ups and downs would have played better with a more sexual screen presence. She represents the female sexual urge, while mother Donnelly represents the brain, conflicted over bad-boy Cagney's tumultuous circumstances. They dress alike because they metaphorically are one woman, but also because it's funny hanging a lampshade on their mother-daughter bear trap. The clever subtext is that Cagney can't win the girl until he figures out how to appeal to both women's sensibilities at the same time.

A half hour segment of the end of a dance marathon (featuring two couples battling until the end) sets up the hilarity for this battle of lovers (the girl with a delightfully domineering mother, the boy with a hysterically cynical sense of life) where the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the marathon prize money leads to more complications and more cons thanks to Cagney's hilarious scheming. A fascinating crisp & fast-moving screenplay keeps the film going at a high speed, and Cagney delivers each line as if he was swallowing a grapefruit whole. Mary Brian is an appealing heroine, but it is Ruth Donnelly as her fast-talking mother who really steals the film from the moment she is introduced watching her daughter in the final moments of the marathon. A fascinating supporting cast features some wonderful character players, among them Allen Jenkins as the marathon announcer and Sterling Holloway ("Winnie the Pooh") as part of the second remaining couple in the marathon.

Early James Cagney movie about a broke hustler who wants to marry a girl but her shrewish mother is dead set on making sure her daughter marries into money. I feel like I'm missing something here. I love Cagney movies and this one has a good score and some positive reviews. Yet I wasn't impressed with it. Cagney's the whole show with a boundless energy that is enjoyable enough but the story is just weak. I didn't laugh once and this is supposed to be (at least partially) a comedy. I also see some praise for Ruth Donnelly but she really got on my nerves throughout the whole picture. It's really more of how the part is written than her acting. I'd still recommend it to Cagney fans but others might be better off finding something else to do for an hour.

Thanks to "Hard To Handle", I now know that the grapefruit diet dates back at least seventy five years! It's always cool to catch a movie that delivers in an unexpected way, and here, Jimmy Cagney is at his best as a fast talking con man, er..., entrepreneur as it were, capitalizing on every opportunity to turn a profit from the expectations of a gullible public. Funny, but it never seemed like he was trying to make a bundle, it just kind of worked out that way. What makes the picture so delightful is the equally versatile Ruth Donnelly, portraying Lefty Merrill's (Cagney) future, whenever we get around to it, mother-in-law. Lil Walters is one track minded to a fault; she'll marry off her daughter Ruth (Mary Brian) to the highest bidder at the drop of a dollar bill. She also has some of the film's snappiest dialog, and it's a toss up as to who's quicker on their feet, Ma Walters or Lefty. As a result, Lefty's girlfriend is almost left in the dust in most of her scenes, she just can't keep up the frenetic pace set by Cagney and Donnelly.Say now, is it really possible that those Depression era dance marathons went as long as eight weeks or more?!!! That's how the picture opens while introducing the entire cast of principal characters. I thought it was a neat touch that the occasion had it's own marathon foot specialist. Kind of makes sense doesn't it?Throughout the story, Cagney's character comes up with scheme after scheme, making lemonade out of every lemon thrown his way. The entire film is a hoot, the only problem being it's not commercially available, so you'll have to be lucky to catch it on a cable channel or source it through a private collector. It's worth it though to catch an early Cagney flick, even if you have to rewind the picture a number of times to understand all the dialog. Cagney's lines are so quick you can't catch them all the first time around!