Lady Kisser

I watched Lady Killer (1933) last night. It's formula Warner Brothers-early Cagney stuff. Bad boy Cagney and bad girl Mae Clarke escape the law by running West. They end up in L.A. He gets a job in the movies. There are Hollywood in-jokes. Mae wears terrible hats. Cagney ends up falling for a bland good girl (Margaret Lindsay), and everything works out in the end. The high points include James Cagney rather openly kissing Mae Clarke's left breast in one of those delightful little asides that make the pre-Codes so interesting. Everybody notices Cagney dragging Mae around by her hair and booting her out of his apartment, and they always refer to the grapefruit scene in Public Enemy, but very few reviewers seem to notice that gentle little kiss. Wonder why that is.

And there's a great shot of some
Buffalo China in a Chicago restaurant scene.