Detail view of Movies Page

Movie Detail

Name Occurs Before Title

Offscreen Credit

Print Viewed By AFI

Blonde Crazy

Alternate Title: Larceny Lane Director: Roy Del Ruth (Dir) Release Date: 14 Nov 1931 Production Date: early Jun--8 Jul 1931 Duration (in mins): 73, 75 or 78			Print this page Display Movie Summary

Cast:	James Cagney	(Bert Harris)
	Joan Blondell	(Ann Roberts)
	Louis Calhern	(Dapper Dan Barker)
	Noel Francis	(Helen)
	Raymond Milland	([Joe] Reynolds)
	Guy Kibbee	(Rupert Johnson)
	Polly Walters	(Peggy)
	Charles Levinson	(Four-eyes, desk clerk)
	William Burress	(Bellock)
	Peter Erkelenz	(Dutch)
	Maude Eburne	(Mrs. Snyder)
	Walter Percival	(Lee)
	Nat Pendleton	(Hank)
	Russell Hopton	(Jerry)

Summary:

Bert Harris, hotel bellhop, likes the looks of Ann Roberts so he arranges for her to get a chambermaid job that has been promised to someone else. Bert has a number of side businesses, including running a craps game, selling bootleg alcohol and blackmailing. After a successful blackmail attempt, Bert and Ann leave town to celebrate. At a more glamorous hotel in another city, Bert meets Dapper Dan Barker, a well-known con man. The two plan a job together, and Bert assumes that he and Dan will be working together. Instead, Dan cons Bert and gets away with $5,000 that belongs to him and Ann. Bert steals a necklace and pawns it to get back Ann's share of the money, and the two leave for New York in search of Dan. On the train, Ann meets Joe Reynolds and falls in love with him. Joe woos Ann with the poems of Robert Browning, and convinced that he is more cultured and more respectable than Bert, she agrees to marry him. Before the marriage, however, Ann thinks up a scheme involving horseracing that takes Dan for the money he stole from them and more. One year later, Ann visits Bert at his hotel. She confesses that Joe has embezzled $30,000 from his firm and is facing jail. Bert agrees to help them out and works out a scheme with Joe. That night when Bert visits Joe's office, Joe is waiting for him with the police and Bert is sent to prison. Ann visits Bert in prison to tell him that she realizes that she has always loved him and will wait for his release.

Production Company:	Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company:	Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Director:	Roy Del Ruth	(Dir)
Writer:	Kubec Glasmon	(Scr)
	John Bright	(Scr)
Photography:	Sid Hickox	(Photog)
Film Editor:	Ralph Dawson	(Ed)
Music:	Leo F. Forbstein	(Vitaphone Orch cond)
Country:	United States

Songs:	"When Your Lover Has Gone," music and lyrics by E. A. Swan; "I Can't Write the Words," music and lyrics by Gerald Marks and Buddy Fields; "I'm Just a Fool in Love with You," music and lyrics by Sidney Mitchell, Archie Gottler and George W. Meyer; "Ain't That the Way It Goes?" music and lyrics by Roy Turk and Fred E. Ahlert.
Composer:	Sidney Mitchell
	Fred E. Ahlert
	Buddy Fields
	Archie Gottler
	Gerald Marks
	George W. Meyer
	E. A. Swan
	Roy Turk

Copyright Claimant	Copyright Date	Copyright Number
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.	10/11/1931 dd/mm/yyyy	LP2632

Physical Properties:	Sd:
	b&w:


Genre:	Comedy-drama

Subjects (Major):	Confidence games
	Confidence men
	Romance

Subjects (Minor):	Hotel bellmen
	Bootleggers
	Robert Browning
	Chambermaids
	Counterfeiters and counterfeiting
	Embezzlement
	Frame-ups
	Horseracing
	Hotels
	Pawnshops
	Police
	Prisons
	Self-sacrifice
	Talismans
	Thieves
	Trains
	Upper classes

Note:	The working title of the film was Larceny Lane , which also was the British release title. Var mentions that this was Joan Blondell's first starring role. According to an ad in FD , Marian Marsh was originally announced for Joan Blondell's role. FD reports different end dates, in one case noting that shooting finished at the end of June and in another, that the film was completed in late July. Modern sources include Dick Cramer ( Cabbie ), Wade Boteler ( Detective ), Ray Cooke and Edward Morgan ( Bellhops ) and Phil Sleeman ( Conman ) to the cast and credit Perc Westmore with makeup. Modern sources also note that Polly Walters replaced Dorothy Burgess.

Bibliographic Sources:	Date	Page
Film Daily	20 May 31	ad p. 9.
Film Daily	2 Jun 31	p. 6.
Film Daily	24 Jun 31	p. 6.
Film Daily	21 Jul 31	p. 7.
Film Daily	6 Dec 31	p. 10.
Hollywood Reporter	9 Jul 31	p. 3.
Hollywood Reporter	11 Aug 31	p. 3.
Motion Picture Herald	22 Aug 1931.
New York Times	4 Dec 31	p. 28.
Variety	8 Dec 31	p. 15.

	Display Movie Summary
The American Film Institute is grateful to Sir Paul Getty KBE and the Sir Paul Getty KBE Estate for their dedication to the art of the moving image and their support for the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and without whose support AFI would not have been able to achieve this historical landmark in this epic scholarly endeavor.



Advanced Search