My unoriginal title sums up the overall message of this film, as it relates to women. Rita, as Virginia, serves as the presumed high maintenance strawberry blond, who turns out to be a stinker, near the end of the film. Cagney, as Biff, initially pined for her, as she walked down the street. But after his friend-enemy Hugo, played by the handsome, personable, Jack Carson, sweeps her off her feet, Biff settles for Virginia's less glamourous (but far from plain) friend Amy(Olivia), who sounded less than ideal at first, but proved more loyal after Biff and Hugo spend 5 years in prison.......... I just wonder why the film was named for the role played by the second lead woman? Unfortunately, being filmed in B&W, Rita's presumably reddish hair photographs as if it were her natural brunet hair...........Virginia and Hugo appear to be spoiled people from wealthy families, thus facilitating their attraction to each other. In contrast, Biff and Amy appear to be from working class families, Amy working as a nurse, which facilitates their eventual bonding. Amy seems an intelligent, independent, good looking girl, with no desire to marry anytime soon. She tries to discourage romantic overtures by Biff, by emphasizing that she is a progressive freethinker, who doesn't believe in marriage and smokes cigarettes, and initially bolts when this doesn't discourage him. Why would she be interested in a ne'er do well bulldog like Biff?? It may seem to make no sense to her, but marry him she does. Even when he returned from prison, she was very nice to him. Yep. She had a heart of gold, if not golden hair!........... In contrast, Rita plays the haughty femme fatale, as she would in "My Gal Sal", and "Blood and Sand", for instance. But, when Hugo returned from prison, she treated him like dirt................ Hugo could be nice to Biff. Knowing that he had a crush on Virginia, presumably, he told Virginia to show Biff a good time around the town(NYC). Biff thought she had changed her mind about him. But, imagine his shock when he was waiting for her to meet him in a park the next evening, and was informed that she had married Hugo!!..........Some years later, a demented Hugo offered the struggling Biff a job as an executive in his construction company. He should have known better, as Biff had no aptitude for the job. As a result, the wall his father(played by the charismatic Alan Hale) was helping build collapsed, killing his father. There was an investigation, and it was determined that the company had been using substandard materials to save a few bucks. Biff didn't know anything about this(he should have). As a result, Biff and Hugo were sent to prison for 5 years...........At times, Biff tried to present himself as a dentist(mostly a tooth puller). Apparently, he had no schooling or license, hoping for a diploma to arrive from a diploma mill(which arrived while he was prison). Amusing incidents with Hale or Carson in the dentist chair punctuate our impression of him as a dentist! He also did various other odd jobs...........Quite a few classic turn of the century songs are sung or played, especially in the beginning, which helps us get in the mood of the scripted time period. Of course, the most emphasized of these is "The Band Played On", which includes the phrase 'strawberry blonde'. Others include "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis", "Bill Bailey ...........", "Wait 'til the Sun Shines, Nellie", "In the Good Old Summertime", "In my Merry Oldsmobile", "When You Were Sweet Sixteen", among others. Yep, this film certainly has enough music to rate it was a musical, among other things, even if none of the music is original. Overall, the skill and charisma of the stars, along with the music, make up for the several screenplay problems, and we have a seemingly happy ending for Cagney and Olivia, if not for Carson and Rita.........Give it a 7. If it had been in color, so we could see the colorful outfits of the period and Rita's appropriate colored hair, I would have given it an 8!.......If you want to see a color version of nearly the same story, but with different(mostly new) songs, check out 1948's, "One Sunday Afternoon". As a plus, talented singer Dennis Morgan plays Biff, while Janis Paige plays Virginia, with the reddish hair.
Review of The Strawberry Blonde
