Adventure in Manhattan (1936)
The story of an egotistical crime writer who gets involved with the case of a notorious art thief (who is believed to be dead) while at the same time romancing a lovely young actress who's in a play that also happens to be the cover for massive jewel job. Art connoisseur and criminologist George Melville is hired to track down art thieves, assisted by perky Claire Peyton and goaded by Phil Bane, the roaring newspaper editor who has employed him. The mastermind poses as a theatrical impresario and stages a war drama, replete with loud explosions, to divert attention from his band of thieves, who are cracking safes in a bank adjacent to the theater.
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The Age of Commercialism
Simply Perfect
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
I couldn't believe this film had such a rich look to it in the beginning, mainly for Arthur standing in the rain in her first scene.Then she does the truly bizarre bit and runs to the little shop and orders, "a facial and a shampoo" and comes out gussied up like a typical Hollywood starlet. How about that dress? Yea, that looks inconspicuous on the busy NY street, don't it? Then we get a coffin, she faints, and McCrea ends up exchanging ties with a guy holding a gun on him.It lost me completely with all this, cuz this was all nothing but a joke.After that, I hardly paid attention and am surprised to see the reviews here involved BANK ROBBERY! I caught on to none of this. All in all, it's quite a shame, as the beginning looked purely authentic, but it all turned on 'a facial and a shampoo' for me.
"Adventures In Manhattan" begins promisingly, with some genuine surprises in its first half; then, unfortunately, it runs out of gas and becomes dull, until a cute romantic ending ("I hate you, darling") that does leave you with a smile on your face. Jean Arthur and Joel Mccrea make a good, slightly offbeat pair, but I think it was a mistake on the screenwriters' part to reveal to the audience so early who the mysterious art robber is; it makes the deductions / predictions of the criminologist that Joel McCrea plays seem less brilliant than they're supposed to be, and also removes nearly all the mystery elements from the story. And despite the title, the only action in the film happens on a theatrical stage. ** out of 4.
It takes a deft touch to produce an amusing crime drama -- as Powell and Loy did for Nick and Nora and as "Mr and Mrs North" did on radio in the 40s. This one begins to get interesting as the McCrea character sneaks into a house to check out the cruel joke that has apparently been played on Jean Arthur. But it turns out that the joke is on him and a suspenseful situation becomes preposterous. The elaborate hoax seems beyond the capabilities of its practitioners. And the comment that suggests that the ring of crooks is entirely too large is accurate. The film oscillates between noir and screwball comedy and the two genre compete with each other. The film never decides what it wants to be and ends up being a generic midair collision.
After a big success in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town which really established Jean Arthur as the rival in screwball comedy to Carole Lombard, she got cast in some routine films that sought to take advantage of her new image. Adventure in Manhattan was one of them and while it's plot verges on the silly it could have been a lot better, but for some really bad miscasting.The guy who could have brought off the role of the wise cracking crime reporter was over at Warner Brothers. This part James Cagney could have phoned over to Columbia, but in the hands of all American hero Joel McCrea it really looks forced. Some high profile robberies have taken place and crime reporter McCrea thinks and has written that the culprit of all these has been a master criminal along the lines of Professor Moriarty. Problem is that this guy is believed dead by all, but McCrea.McCrea is right and it's revealed early enough in the film to be Reginald Owen who is now in the guise of a theatrical producer. And Jean Arthur is an aspiring young ingénue in the cast of a World War I play he's producing. One of the problems I had with this plot was that Professor Moriarty and many of the master criminals in real life and fiction usually work alone or with as few accomplices as possible. The scheme that Owen has involves a considerable gang and I really can't swallow that somewhere along the line somebody doesn't slip up. Thomas Mitchell in one of his earliest screen roles is McCrea's editor and he's his usual good self. Arthur makes the best of a routine assignment and it took someone like Preston Sturges to bring out the real comedian in Joel McCrea.