Review of Boy Meets Girl

I love "screwball comedies" from the 1930s and 40s. Such films as ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and BRINGING UP BABY and HIS GIRL Friday are wonderful films--with a wonderfully breezy pace, high energy and lots of laughs. BOY MEETS GIRL is an attempt to do this same sort of comedy, though the laughs just aren't that noticeable and the film is too darn frenetic to be enjoyed. I am serious when I say that this film was even more fast-paced and hyper than ONE, TWO, THREE and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. Because of this, I really found the film to be, at times, truly annoying--particularly the characters played by Cagney and O'Brien. They were NOT particularly likable, well-developed or easy to follow! In many ways, it was like having an average actor pretend to be a Marx Brother from one of their REALLY hyper early films--like HORSEFEATHERS. The problem is, it worked for the Marxes--but not here. A frantic pace alone does not make a movie--a decent script and good characters need to be in place as well.