Me And My Gal

Manny Farber singles out this 1932 programmer as Raoul Walsh’s best film, and there’s a fair chance that he’s right. Spencer Tracy plays a New York cop and Joan Bennett is a waitress who serves as his sparring partner; they’ve never been better or funnier, and their working-class urban milieu is served up with glee and much gustoall aided and abetted by Arthur Kober’s wisecracking script. The plot involves the two leads and a paralyzed vet, who blinks his eyes in Morse code, joining forces to foil a bank robbery; the movie is rich in period evocation, including a hilarious reference to Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude. A small picture, but in many ways an ecstatic one. 78 min. (JR)

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