The Bride Came C.O.D. is a 1941 American screwballromantic comedy starring James Cagney as an airplane pilot and Bette Davis as a runaway heiress, and directed by William Keighley. Although the film was publicized as the first screen pairing of Warner Bros.' two biggest stars, they had actually made Jimmy the Gent together in 1934, and had wanted to find another opportunity to work together.
The screenplay was written by Kenneth Earl, M. M. Musselman, and twins Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. The basic plot owes much to It Happened One Night, in which an heiress seeks to marry a playboy of whom her father disapproves, only to end up with a charming working man.
Plot
A publicity-hungry broadcaster promotes the elopement between Joan Winfield, the daughter of Texas oil tycoon Lucius K. Winfield, and famous band leader Alan Brice. Steve Collins, who runs a small air charter service that is heavily in debt, is engaged to fly them from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. If Steve doesn’t come up with $1112.77 by midnight, however, the finance company will seize his airplane. Upon hearing on the radio of the upcoming elopement, Winfield calls his daughter at the airport to attempt to prevent it, accusing Alan of being a fortune-hunter. Steve calls the tycoon back, offering to prevent the elopement and take his daughter to him unmarried in Amarillo, Texas—for a price. They agree on a freight price of $10 a pound for whatever she weighs C.O.D. At an estimated 115 pounds, Steve will make enough to settle his debt. When the creditor returns to demand the key to his plane, Steve knocks him out cold. Tricking Alan out of the airplane by telling him that he has an urgent phone call from New York, Steve takes off with Joan. The press reports the bride as kidnapped, and the story makes headlines and news reports nationwide.
Joan asks Steve how much he is asking for ransom, offering to pay more. He tells her he is charging $1100—more or less—and she offers to pay him $5,000 to return her. Steve insists he cannot go back on the bargain with her father. When an irate Joan tries to jump out of the aircraft, Steve sees that her unfastened parachute is on backwards and swerves the plane to knock her off balance so she cannot jump. He crash lands near the ghost town of Bonanza, 60 miles from the nearest town.
The assistant DA instructs Sheriff McGee to find the kidnapper and arrest him for stealing the plane from the finance company (kidnapping is out of their jurisdiction). Meanwhile, at the crash site, Joan and Steve spend the night camping out, with Steve producing a picnic basket full of fattening food and encouraging Joan to eat.
The next morning, they encounter the ghost town’s lone resident, "Pop" Tolliver. Joan insists she is being kidnapped, but Steve contends it’s a lover’s quarrel. When Tolliver hears news of the kidnapping on the radio, he "arrests" Steve at gunpoint, locking him up in the town jail. Tolliver sets out with Joan in his old 1920s jalopy, which breaks down within sight of Bonanza.
Joan and Tolliver hear on the news that a search team has been dispatched. When Tolliver hears Joan’s father state that his daughter has not been kidnapped, but that he hired Collins to stop the elopement, Tolliver lets Collins out of prison, determined to help return Joan to her father.
Joan escapes into an abandoned mine, followed by Steve, and they are trapped by a cave-in for several hours. When Joan falls asleep, Steve finds a way out and enjoys a meal with Pop. On Pop’s advice, he returns to Joan in the mine without disclosing the way out. Believing that they are going to die, Joan re-examines her frivolous life, believing her engagement to Alan after knowing him only 4 days was hasty. Steve tells her he loves her, but when he kisses her, she tastes mustard on his lips, realizes he has deceived her, and is outraged. Exiting the mine they find that Alan has tracked them down, accompanied by a Nevada judge, and the sheriff has come to arrest Collins on a California arrest warrant. To prevent Steve’s arrest, Tolliver lies and tells the sheriff that Bonanza is in Nevada, making his search warrant invalid.
Still angry, Joan agrees to marry Alan. Steve does not object when the Nevada judge marries them, since the marriage is invalid. The "newlyweds" board another aircraft, but when Joan sees a souvenir labeled “Bonanza, California,” she figures out that they are not really married and parachutes out to be reunited with Steve. They get married with her father's approval and honeymoon in Bonanza. After celebrating, Joan weighs 118 pounds, for a C.O.D. payment of $1180, enough to pay off Steve’s debt.
The Bellanca F Rocket used in the film as Cagney's "kidnapping" aircraft
Both Cagney and Davis were interested in changing their movie personas, with Cagney moving away from the gangster-themed roles, while Davis had been seen only in serious dramas, and a romantic comedy was the way.[3] Cagney insisted on having his brother, William, produce the film, with his past success of Captains of the Clouds (1942) proving that he could move from acting to producing.[N 1] After their work on The Strawberry Blonde (1941), the Cagneys also brought in Julius and Phil Epstein to "invigorate" the script.[5][6] Davis wasn't the first choice for the Joan Winfield part, as Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers and Rosalind Russell were considered before the role was earmarked for Olivia de Havilland.[7] With the backing of Hal Wallis, however, Davis got the coveted role.[8][9]
Principal photography took place in Death Valley, California in January 1941, and was problematic as temperatures soared, the script problems were unresolved, and one of the stars actually fell into a cactus, with Davis having 45 quills pulled out of her rear.[N 2]
The New York Times dismissed The Bride Came C.O.D. as "a serviceable romp."[10] Reviewer Archer Winston in The New York Post succinctly put it: "Okay, Jimmie and Bette. You've had your fling. Now go back to work."[8] Despite the critical reviews, the film was a popular favorite, and one of the year's top 20 box-office films.[8]
For her part, in her later biographies and interviews, Bette Davis derided The Bride Came C.O.D., sarcastically saying, "it was called a comedy."[11] She would also complain that "all she got out of the film was a derriere full of cactus quills."[8]
A year later, animator Chuck Jones spoofed the film in the Warner Bros.Conrad Cat cartoon, "The Bird Came C.O.D."[12] More recent reviews have described the film as neither "memorable nor funny"[13] but said that the two stars still are worth watching even in a forgettable formula feature.[14]
^Captains of the Clouds in production in 1941, but released in 1942, was also an aviation-themed film, surprising, considering Cagney's fear of flying.[4]
^Davis was supposed to have a stunt double jump out of an aircraft, but accidentally fell into a cactus, and the scene was left in.[8]
Citations
^Dickens, Homer (1993). The Complete Films of James Cagney. Carol Publishing Group.
McGilligan, Patrick. Cagney: The Actor as Auteur. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc., 1975. ISBN0-498-01462-2.
Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN0-9613088-0-X.
Schickel, Richard and George Perry. Bette Davis: Larger than Life. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press, 2009. ISBN978-0-76243-688-0.
Sikov, Ed. Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007. ISBN0-8050-7548-8.
Warren, Doug and James Cagney. Cagney: The Authorized Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986, First edition 1983. ISBN0-312-90207-7.
