You might have money, yeah, and a big fine car
It don’t matter what you look like, no, no it don’t matter who you are
Son, don’t you know you can’t win all the time
Sometime you’re gonna have to lose
Just as long as you live, you got to take as well as give
‘Cause everybody’s got to pay some dues, now, now
Everybody’s got to pay some dues
-Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, ‘Everybody’s Gotta Pay Some Dues’ (Tamla 54048), 1961
Roy Del Ruth’s 1931 pre-code classic Blonde Crazy is forever known as the film that unleashed the wonderful James Cagney/Joan Blondell combination onto the world, and that’d be enough to ensure its place in the annuals of cinematic lore (regardless of Warner Brothers negligent attitude toward home video availability). Roy Del Ruth is little more than a director of a camera needing to be set in front of either of the stars for maximum affect; Jonathan Rosenbaum was correct when he said the films stars where actually the films auteurs. But lets not go too far (Andrew Sarris does when he says Del Ruth “seemed more a trend follower than a trend setter”, but then of course he’ll be overly dismissive as he doesn’t even indicate the clearly masterful Blonde Crazy in italics, i.e. his key for works in a directors career of “special interest”) there are nice touches here and there; subtle camera zooms and readjustments, a nice action set piece car chase with destructive climax, and pleasant pace and ordering of information. Yeomen work I suppose, but here is a film the sum of its star quality, and Del Ruth is competent enough to foster this.