One Two ThreeFirst, I want to share this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0eoH4l4usThis is the song I had in my head every time I thought about the title of this movie. And anytime after I thought about the title. Thank you very much. Now I'll pass it on to you.
Okay, so this is a Billy Wilder joint, with Cagney starring and both of them working hard to make the laughs come. And they came. And came. In fact, I'd have to say this is the most successful Wilder comedy I've seen. Sure, there are some solid chuckles in Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment despite the dark spirit in those films. Some Like It Hot was fine, but not my style, relying a lot on physical gags. I'm guessing that with Cagney, he needed to focus on language and verbal sparring. And so he made this, his answer to His Girl Friday, fast-paced, a gag a minute. Only instead of a battle of the sexes, it is a battle of the ideologies, a cold war with sizzling hot words.
Cagney is a capitalist, working for one of the most successful corporate enterprises, Coca Cola, when they still had parts of the world to conquer. Cagney has his eye on the USSR ("that's short for Russia"), which is almost within sight, when his bosses 17 year old daughter comes to visit and gets pregnant. But it's okay, she's married. Oops, married to a true-blue dyed-in-the-wool communist, whose fondest dream is to take his love to Moscow to live red-ever-after. It is up to Cagney to come up with a scheme to save his job, keep the deal with Russia and get the promotion he lusts after more than anything.
Never have I been so uncomfortable laughing as hard as I did. The movie is rooting for the capitalists to win, for the girls to be humiliated and under patriarchal control, to present a number of foreign stereotypes and plenty of male gaze. I should hate this film, but the jokes come so fast and so very funny, I couldn't stay upset at the film for longer than a few minutes here and there. The pacing is as perfect as Cagney can make it and while the character arcs and circumstances are silly, in this fantasy of Donald Trump, it actually works.
It works mostly because despite the stereotypes and sexism, everyone is pretty happy, and the movie successfully helps us believe that everyone would be happy. Marriages are made and saved and despite the success of capitalism, love prevails. Wilder is just that good. Frankly, better than many other of his films. I shouldn't want this to work, but it does and I'm so glad of it.
4/5