Adventure in Manhattan

It could have been a good, tough crime heist film without those comedy lines. A true excellent bank heist, through a tunnel, not an armed robbery plot. But Edward Ludwig, whose speciality will be adventure movies - CARIBBEAN, JIVARO, SANGAREE - Ed Ludwig missed the opportunity to give us a good film noir. He did it with THE LAST GANGSTER though, starring Edward G Robinson, for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, not a real tough and gritty noir either, but still good. So, back to this one, even the Joel McCrea's presence doesn't save the whole for me. Just entertaining, fun, yes, but with such crime ingredients, it could have been different and better. As if you decided to prepare an excellent dish, with the adequate ingredients choice and quantity, but with the wrong cooking time on the cooker or in the oven.

Joel McCrea gets robbed of his wallet by some weird blonde, who proves to be mixed up with the theatre business, while he is a controversial journalist who is famous for presenting predictions that come true. It's a screwball comedy with straight and witty dialog all the way getting smarter all the time, as the plot gradually thickens, and a great bank robbery is synchronized with a great premiere of a first world war drama with reckless gunfire, bombs, explosions and plenty of smoke, and for some reason Jean Arthur gets the hang of it. She is brilliant, and so is Joel McCrea, they work splendidly together as an odd couple in constant arguments with each other about their incurable differtences, but it's a comedy - nothing to worry about.

I have long admired Jean Arthur, so when I came across one of her films I did not know I naturally jumped at the chance to watch it. I did not even bother to read any of the reviews here or elsewhere in advance. As it turns out, that was probably the right decision: Some of these reviews might have prejudiced me against this near-perfect 1930s comedy. The plot is too convoluted to summarise here, but director Edward Ludwig manages to present it in a way that makes every twist and turn, however zany, look plausible (at least for the moment). He also gives 'Adventure in Manhattan' great tempo and pace: there is never a dull moment, and many moments that are simply hilarious. Joel McCrea plays a criminologist with a Sherlock Holmes-like ability to put himself in a master-thief's position and to second-guess the thief's plans. As his predictions come true he is so full of himself that one failure is truly devastating. Jean Arthur is great as an actress who thinks he is nuisance but eventually falls in love with him. The dialogues are spot on: sharp and witty. In sum, this is as nice a comedy as you will find: don't believe the reviewers who jumped on the bandwagon talking it down!

Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur have an "Adventure in Manhattan" in this 1936 film, also starring Thomas Mitchell and Reginald Owen, and directed by Edward Ludwig.

McCrea plays a sharp criminal reporter who is convinced that a world-famous thief, believed dead, is actually very much alive and responsible for some big heists that have taken place. He meets Arthur, a young actress, and the two fall in love as McCrea tries to prove his theory.

This is a really enjoyable film, with delightful performances by McCrea and Arthur. It's a bit all over the place - part screwball, part mystery. I frankly didn't see much of Nick and Nora Charles in it as others have. But the dialogue is bright, McCrea and Arthur have good chemistry, and some aspects of the mystery are good. McCrea is often thought of as sort of a poor man's Gary Cooper: a handsome, hunky all-American. In westerns there is more of a similarity, with Cooper having more gravitas, but McCrea's lighter touch and more overt personality lent themselves well to comedy. That's where he and Cooper parted company.

Enjoyable, and with a better script, it would have been terrific.

This is one film I was very glad I watched without reading any of the IMDb reviews beforehand. It caught me off guard, and I enjoy such mysteries that much more. All I can say from the several reviews posted before mine is that I think they were mostly fooled as well; or they knew the outcome beforehand, which must take away much of the enjoyment of this film; or they were expecting an all-out comedy romp and were disappointed that it wasn't that. I watched "Adventure in Manhattan" without any foreknowledge, except that it was a combination comedy, mystery, crime and romance. And I enjoyed it immensely. The plot is so cleverly twisted that I had to watch it again right away to see if I could find any clues I might have missed that would tip me off about what was really going on – behind the scenes, so to speak, as well as what was on screen.

The plot for "Adventure in Manhattan" is quite sophisticated. It has twists that one doesn't realize until we're past them. First, it's one thing, and then it's another. The plot has near equal doses of comedy, mystery, drama, crime and romance neatly spread throughout and interspersed. It also qualifies as a common satire in films of the period – it's another of many films about newspapers and reporters, and it lampoons the yellow journalism of the day.

The comedy isn't in the form of witty and funny dialog, but in situations. In one scene, Joel McCrea flips a coin with Jean Arthur to see where they will go to lunch. The coin lands in an alms cup of a blind man sitting on the sidewalk. As the couple lean forward and strain to try to see if it came up heads of tails, a policeman walks up and glares at them as though they're about to steal from the poor. The blind man has a big grin on his face as the couple walks off. In another scene, Thomas Mitchell rattles off directions about his newspaper to McCrea. "The columns of this paper are wide open to any young fool who can make an ass of himself entertainingly." McCrea says, "Thank you." Mitchell continues, "Now all I want is circulation. If you can write a woman in this, and a haunted castle …"

The cast is superb. Jean Arthur is excellent as Claire Peyton. Joel McCrea is George Melville, a criminologist who has written books and is known as an independent columnist. Thomas Mitchell plays Phil Bane, the managing editor of a paper that wants to hire Melville to cover the heist of a famous ruby. Reginald Owen plays Blackton Gregory, a wealthy backer who is producing a play about World War I that will be opening soon. He's also a connoisseur of fine art. Peyton is the female star of the play.

McCrea's Melville is much more than a reporter, and he befuddles other reporters with his predictions about further thefts about to be committed. If one remembers that he's a criminologist, his guesses don't seem so outlandish as they do to the rest of the press pool. Suffice it to say that they don't have a clue about criminology. And this is somewhat lost on we viewers because of the guffaws that the press corps have with Melville's self-assurance. McCrea plays the character as arrogant and a braggart, yet able to put down his fellow reporters with some humor and not in a mean-spirited way.

Arthur and McCrea are the clear co-stars of this wonderfully entertaining film. But Mitchell and Owen add a great deal to make it the nice piece of entertainment that it is. If you're fortunate enough to watch it without reading a synopsis that gives away the details of the plot, you should enjoy it immensely. But, if you know its outcome beforehand, watch the way the plot unfolds and twists for the little surprise subplots. There's much more to this film than meets the eye in a first casual viewing. The more one can see the twists developing, the more fun it is.

This is one of the only movies I can recall that showed a press club for reporters and writers.

This isn't a great comedy; but it comes close to being a great mystery. With the comedy and some other drama and romantic bits, it's a very good movie that most people should enjoy.