ME AND MY GAL

Like many pre-Code films, this comic crime tale was kept out of circulation for decades when the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934 made it unreleasable. When it re-surfaced in 1970 as part of a festival lineup of early Fox Films, critics hailed it as a bawdy delight. Spencer Tracy stars as a street cop in hot pursuit of an escaped mobster (George Walsh, director Raoul Walsh’s brother) and who is also in love with a perky hash-house waitress (Joan Bennett). Tracy and Bennett court each other with a barrage of wisecracks, but there’s trouble ahead—Bennett’s sister (Marion Burns) is hiding the crook in the family’s attic. Tracy was already establishing himself as a master actor, particularly in working-class parts, but for Bennett, the gum-chewing waitress was a welcome change of pace from the pallid ingenue roles in which she was typically typecast. Tracy enjoyed their work together so much, he later requested she play his wife in Father of the Bride (1950).

d. Raoul Walsh, 80m, 35mm

Courtesy of The Walt Disney Studios.