The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)

The Bride Came C.O.D. is an American comedy romance film first released in 1941, directed by William Keighley.  The film stars James Cagney, Bette Davis, Stuart Erwin, Eugene Pallette and Jack Carson.  It has also been released under the title: La fiancée contre remboursement.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


To secure a national publicity coup, bandleader Alan Brice persuades his fiancée, the heiress Joan Winfield, to elope with him.  Realising that Joan’s father will do anything to prevent them from marrying, they plan to wed in another state, and so they engage pilot Steve Collins to fly them to Amarillo.  When Joan’s father gets wind of the planned elopement, he offers Steve a cash payment if he delivers the runaway bride to him.  With creditors pounding at his door, Steve can hardly refuse, but he soon realises that he has taken on a lot more than he bargained for...

The Bride Came C.O.D. may not be the most sophisticated of screwball comedies, but it scores very highly on the fun-o-meter, with James Cagney delivering plenty of laughs, mainly at the expense of his co-star, Bette Davis.  It’s not the first time the two actors appeared together – they had previously worked alongside one another in the 1934 film Jimmy the Gent – but it would be their last. 

Cagney is famous for man-handling his female co-stars in his films – a trend he began when he thrust a grapefruit half into Mae Clark’s face in The Public Enemy (1931).  Here, Bette Davis gets the full Cagney treatment, including headbutt, fireman’s lift, catapult onslaught, and, best of all, having cactus spines plucked from her derriere.  The sight of Cagney and Davis smooching isn’t quite so appealing, but, like most things in life, one has to take the rough with the smooth.   Yes it’s silly, yes it’s predictable and ludicrously contrived, but, in spite of all that, The Bride Came C.O.D. is well worth seeing – a mad, mad romp that is guaranteed to brighten any dreary day.

© James Travers 2008

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