The Amazing Mr Williams (1939)
IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 20 minutes, rated 6.6 by 344 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery
Verdict: Go girl!
The titular Williams is the only plod who can open a door, notice the murder weapon, pick up the sticks, tie his shoes, and toss a coin. Accordingly, he is invaluable and he amazes his colleagues in blue with his perspicacity. Success has welded and wedded him to the job so deeply that even his fiancée, that firecracker Joan Blondell, takes a number and waits for him. She and Melvyn Douglas are a dynamic duo in search of script.
Murders, robberies, assaults that have baffled the plod department for years, these Williams resolves in five minutes between the battle of the sexes with Blondell, where he has no chance. She carries the picture.
Douglas and Blondell were paired in four films, and it is easy to see why. They have a rapport that shows in the timing, the sight-gags, and even the positioning. But in this case the producer seemed to think that was enough, provided they were surrounded by the contract character actors. Absentees include a script and a director. It seems much longer than feature length and feature length is too long for the story.
The writer thought it was funny to dress Williams in drag and use him as bait to trap a villain. The rumour mill has it that Douglas did not like this turn, and refused to shave off his moustache, leaving the director to put a veil on him. All of this commotion for a lame idea to begin with.
Blondell has 162 credits on the IMDb, starting in 1930 and ending in 1981. Her parents were in vaudeville and she took to the stage at age three, and never left it. Alongside the film career she also trod the boards — hitting Broadway at seventeen — throughout her career. The peak was the the 1930s and 1940s when there were roles for smart women who weren’t afraid to say so, and she did. She usually played the best friend of the Major Studio Talent and stole one show after another from the MST. She did ten movies a year at times, essentially playing herself in screwball comedies. Then came a dramatic role in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and she once again dominated the camera. Then the unforgettable Blue Veil (1951). She could not steal any scenes in Desk Set (1957) but she still sparkled with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey.
Among my favourites, as well as those mentioned above, are Office Wife (1930), I Want a Divorce (1940), Model Wife (1941), Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943), The Corpse Came C.O.D. (1947), and Nightmare Alley (1947). With Douglas, in addition to this title, she did There’s Always a Woman (1938), There’s That Woman Again (1938), and Good Girls Go To Paris (1939).
She went into television in the 1950s and pretty much stayed there. The work, she said, was easier and the money steady.