Big City (1937)

• Directed by Frank Borzage.

• Screenplay by Dore Schary & Hugo Butler. Based on a story by Norman Krasna (who also produced the film).

• The first 10 minutes are absolutely & delightfully charming. Luise Rainer & Spencer Tracy (as Anna & Joe Benton, respectively) are immediately believable as a spousal team – so much so that I feel instantly compelled to nominate them for the (entirely made-up) title of World’s Most Adorably In-Love Couple. Tracy & Rainer are completely in sync with each other in terms of both gesture & tone, and the level of lightheartedness they’re able to achieve is really fun to watch.

• Joe & pretty much all of the Bentons’ friends, it seems, work for an independent taxi company, which an evil-behemoth-monopoly of a taxi company, ‘Comet Cab’ is trying to put out of business with intimidation tactics (mostly coming in the form of violent, we-outnumber-you-15-to-1 brawls). Paul (Victor Varconi), Anna’s brother, decides that the best way to put a stop to all of this is to infiltrate the Evil Comets’ Scheme for Market Domination from the inside – so he applies (and is successfully hired) for a job there.

• Next, Paul is exploded.

‘What?!‘ you say. ‘Why?! How?!’

Sorry, children – but I don’t have too many answers for you. Logistically, I don’t really understand how the rain-jacket-in-the-box-delivered-by-a-traitor/oh-and-also-there’s-a-bomb works. I mean, Paul had only been working there for a few days, I think – so it doesn’t seem long enough for anyone at Comet to recognize him as a spy. Plus – even if they did already know him & therefore suspect his less-than-honest intentions…how on earth would it escalate so quickly, so that they’re framing him for an explosion & shooting him dead so he can’t tell anyone the truth afterwards??? I mean, like…what?

Not to mention the fact that it makes no sense that the bomb schemers would be able to incorporate the rain-jacket-box delivery into their plan – and then execute it with such perfect timing – on such short (/zero?) notice.

(This whole several-minute plot event is very muddy in its construction & clarity…which sucks, because it seems to be extremely integral to the narrative of the rest of the movie.)

But…um…okay.

• The lawyers from/with Comet want to link all 40 independent cab drivers to the crime, and have them all put on trial & thrown in jail, thus finalizing the taxi monopoly long sought-after by all of the Evil Comets. However, the defense lawyers (?) are like, ‘Nah – it’d be way easier to just put the blame on this one woman who’s not-quite-yet an American citizen & have her deported & just be done with it.’

Super lame. But that’s what they decide to do: pin the blame on Anna.

• So instead of just surrendering Anna to the police? deportment agents? (I don’t really know who they are – just that they’re after Anna), all of Joe & Anna’s friends decide to hide her out for 6 weeks, until she hits her 3-year anniversary of being married to Joe – at which point her deportment will be off the table, on account of you know, immigration rules & shit.

• Andrew Tombes is great as “Inspector Matthews” in a very brief, but very funny & very well-played scene – in which the inspector sarcastically applauds his team of detectives for their success at finding Anna (they haven’t), then proceeds to rage-ily hurl file folders at them.

• I also hugely enjoyed the scene in which Guinn Williams chugs an entire bottle of milk to prove to two onlooking detectives that the milk isn’t being taken back to Anna. The scene lasts a full forty seconds – where all that’s happening is Danny (Williams) drinking milk – and Guinn Williams really, truly drinks the entire thing. It is motherfucking glorious, y’all.

Guinn Williams is my favorite!

(Here, it’s fun to note that this is not the first time we’ve seen Guinn Williams as a kind-hearted, hero of a cab driver – he also played one of those in RAFTER ROMANCE (1933)!)

• After trying – but failing – to find Anna for several weeks, Team Detective instead rounds up the Independent Taxi Boys & is like, ‘Okay, we’ll capture & charge all y’all instead.’

• The Taxi Boys & their families are fine with this, because they’re willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for the Adorable Charmers that are Anna & Joe…but Anna is not fine with it, and in a classic dumbkins move, she calls the mayor from a drugstore phone booth & is like, ‘Yo. Deport me.’

(Really, the phone-booth surrender scene is dumb as shit, and is made way more melodramatic than it needs to be. It’s like the movie’s trying to reach the emotional levels of self-sacrifice achieved in…CAMILLE (1936), or something – when in actuality, it’s a movie more on the level of say, SPLENDOR (1935).)

(And it’s not that I don’t appreciate your acting chops, Luise, because I do – it’s just that…there’s a time & place for everything, you know?)

• The above two bullet points of parenthesesed commentary also apply to the goodbye scene aboard the deportment ship-boat. Joe’s like, ‘I’ll follow you over there – see you in a couple weeks.’ And Anna is like, ‘Nooooo, Joey – you will stay here, because if you come you will go broke because you won’t be able to find a job besides back-breaking labor that will pay you a dollar. I will have to take care of the baby (oh yeah, ps: Anna’s pregnant) alone, see you in a few years – or possibly never again.’

And we’re like, ‘What? What are you even talking about? Anna, you’re being a crazy, unnecessarily defeatist drama-clown.’

• In trying to round up some last-minute money to get Anna a room upgrade on the ship-boat, they (Joe & Co.) accidentally stumble on a just-in-case letter Traitorous Buddy (he’s the rain-jacket-box miscreant from earlier) (played by John Arledge) has prepared to send to the DA – to be mailed, we find out, in the event that the Evil Comets don’t pay Buddy the $500 they promised him for framing Brother Paul.

• So, in a hurry, the night’s mission shifts from ‘Get Anna a Better Cabin’ to ‘Force Buddy Into Spilling His Criminal Beans to the (Ever-Illustrious) Mayor and Thus Free Anna Hooray.’

• And of course…it works out, following a five-minute cab race to the ship-boat dock, and a similarly lengthy brawl between the Evil Comets (who are suddenly there), the Independent Taxi Boys, and the Mayor’s tuxedoed party guests, who came along for the ride.

(The one highlight of said brawl is this one large, bearded fellow who we’ve never seen before, but who stands behind a pole – also, he’s holding a crutch – and just bops people on the head as they come around the corner. We don’t know who he is, or why he has a crutch, or how he came to be so good at bopping people – but it becomes kind of funny, nevertheless.)

• This was a pretty contrived story that was goofily executed. There’s just not enough substance or complexity to make the film work – as though there just wasn’t much effort put into making all of the story parts connect in a meaningful & worthwhile way.

• Tracy & Rainer create a couple that we really like & are interested to find out more about…and then that just doesn’t happen, because we get bogged down in all of the barely thought-out & loosely constructed Taxi Driver Feud nonsense.

• Oh well. Can’t say I recommend this one. But hey, at least we got to see Guinn Williams drink that milk!