The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

William Keighley

Writers:

Kenneth Earl (story) and
M.M. Musselman (story) ...

Release Date:

12 July 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

She Came Collect and his heart paid the freight . . . in the year's romantic explosion !

Plot:

A financially-strapped charter pilot hires himself to an oil tycoon to kidnap his madcap daughter and prevent her from marrying a vapid band leader.

Plot Keywords:

Pilot | Bandleader | Heiress | Desert | Nevada

Cast

James Cagney	...	Steve Collins
Bette Davis	...	Joan Winfield
Stuart Erwin	...	Tommy Keenan
Eugene Pallette	...	Lucius K. Winfield
Jack Carson	...	Allen Brice
George Tobias	...	Peewee Defoe
Harry Davenport	...	Pop Tolliver
William Frawley	...	Sheriff McGee
Edward Brophy	...	Hinkle
Harry Holman	...	Judge Sobler
Chick Chandler	...	Riley (reporter #1)
Douglas Kennedy	...	Mac (second reporter and photographer) (as Keith Douglas)
Herbert Anderson	...	Reporter #3
William Newell	...	Andy Anderson (McGee's pilot)
William Hopper	...	Keenan's and Brice's pilot (as DeWolf Hopper)

Runtime:

USA:92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #7003)

Filming Locations:

Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The term "C.O.D." of the title stands for 'Collect on Delivery'.

Quotes:

Steve Collins: That dame. Undoubtedly the outstanding screwball of her generation.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in The Bird Came C.O.D. (1942)

Soundtrack:

Oh My Darling Clementine

Love Among the Cacti

The Bride Came COD is not the most brilliant of screwball comedies; and as it came near the end of the cycle one can sense the genre wearing thin, running out of variations. 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. Davis and Cagney spend squabble continuously; in their quieter moments they hide out in an old mine shaft,--but I don't want to give too much of the slight story away.

Bride is a fascinating, almost Manny Farberish exploration of space. Its early scenes are in a night-club (lots of people, highly extroverted); then it moves to an airport (isolated, heroic, inner-directed and very masculine); and then takes to the air (escape, romance, adventure); finally it winds up in a remote desert town (isolation, individualism, survivalism). After some exploration of the town, the film then more or less settles on revolving around the elderly prospector's ramshackle living quarters, complete with an old stove. The movie is an interesting in where the characters go physically and what goes on between them emotionally. 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. In many respects the actors and the dialogue play second fiddle to director William Keighly's remarkable control of the movie's sense of place, which movies from the highly cluttered to the very spare. The Bride Came COD is a delight to watch, in the literal sense, in that one can thoroughly enjoy it without paying to close attention to the story.