Rating: 
Summary: "Bury us, but don't MARRY us!"
Review: Set your time machine for 1961 and go back to the days of Khrushchev, Huntley-Brinkley, and the height of the Cold War. Billy Wilder's screwball farce is set in West Berlin, where Macnamara (James Cagney), the head of the local Coca Cola office, wants " the pause that refreshes" to be the first American product sold behind the Iron Curtain. He also has to baby-sit his boss's wild teenage daughter (played by Pamela Tiffin), who quickly marries a raging communist from East Berlin and finds herself in the family way. And now her father is coming over to see how well Macnamara is taking care of his little girl.
This frenetic comedy is not for everyone, but if you can remember pill box hats and Berlin before the Wall, you will probably love it. The one-liners come fast and furious as all the actors shout their lines, and the "Sabre Dance" is the background music for the non-stop physical humor. Cagney hams it up as the harried Coca Cola boss who barks orders to his ex-nazi assistant and keeps wife Arlene Francis from leaving him. Tiffin, a teen icon at the time, floats through the movie in a Southern-belle haze, mostly ogling handsome Horst Buchholz, who plays her commie beatnik husband, Otto ("He doesn't even wear socks!"). The supporting cast is full of German and Russian stereotypes of the period who race around at breakneck speed trying to make Otto into a respectable husband.
If you liked the wacky political humor that was popular at the time, you'll enjoy this very funny comedy, filmed in glorious black and white.
Rating:
Summary: Cagney as he was meant to be...
Review: Simply put this may be Cagney's truest and therefore best movie.
As many fans know Cagney never really wanted to be an actor. for Cagney acting was an end to a means. In real life cagney was a fun loving jovial man not the "gangster" of his movie fame. This film allows us to see Cagney as Cagney... a serious...but funny man. As he was in real life he is in this film, quick witted, in command, and hilarious. the film is a constant barrage to the mind ( do to the genious of Billy Wilder ). As many Cagney fans know this was his 2nd. to last film and did not do anouther film for 20 years. Mid way through filming a scene that was a rapid fire monologue that took all day to shoot Cagey confided to Wilder that he new it was time to "hang it up". An exhausted Cagney was to have said that when it takes all day to shoot a scene the end is hear. to all that read this review if you want to laugh and be entertained by one of the greats this is the film.
Rating:
Summary: A Billy Wilder Classic with Jimmy Cagney
Review: This Cold War comedy is surprisingly fresh after forty years. Jimmy Cagney is a Coca Cola executive assigned to West Berlin after a slip on the steps of the corporate ladder sent his once bright prospects into the deep freeze.Cagney dreams of a London posting, only to learn that he has to babysit his boss' teenage daughter, Pamela Tiffin. The capitalist's daughter from Atlanta somehow slips into East Berlin where she marries a handsome young Red. To make matters worse, she's pregnant and Daddy is landing in Berlin in a few hours. It is said that Cagney despaired of his own performance and slipped into retirement until coaxed back two decades later to star in Ragtime. It is hard to see much slippage. The delivery of rapid-fire instructions to his buxom secretary is a true work of art! We need a DVD for this great comedy and soon1
Rating: 
Summary: an undiscovered gem!
Review: This is not one of Wilder's or Cagney's best-known films, which is truly a shame, because it's one of both's better efforts. A little stagy, but no matter. It moves along at a rocket pace, with political and social spoofs and stereotypes flying along so quickly and wittily you almost don't have time to catch them all. Cagney shows, decades after his earlier efforts, he was still more than capable of comedy, and the supporting cast is near flawless. Interesting to see a young Horst Bucholtz in such a madcap role as well. Definitely worth picking up!
Rating:
Summary: A little-known Comedic Gem
Review: This is one of the most hilariously fast-paced and well-acted comedies ever made. It's also Jimmy Cagney's next-to-last movie and his last quality performance. He is absolutely brilliant as the rapid-fired MacNamera, a Coca-Cola bottling executive in West Berlin. Pamela Tiffin delivers a standout performance as Southern belle Scarlett and she has several lines which will have you rolling on the floor in stitches. Though the movie is admittedly dated (and if you're under 30 you probably won't get some of the Cold War humor, it's still worth seeing again again again. I guarantee you won't be able to stop laughing. The pace is furious, the jokes constant and the acting is uniformly excellent.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: This Movie is a masterpiece in Movie History. And it shows Berlin as it was back in the late 50's and early 60's.
Rating:
Summary: Full of Stereotypes and Spoofs of Stereotypes
Review: This movie is built on the crass stereotyping of national, regional, and personal characteristics: all Germans are heal-clicking former Nazis; Communists on the surface are dedicated ideologists but really crave a life of Western decadence; American southerners (men) are right-wing imbeciles navigating the complexities of life on a few cherished prejudices; young American (southern) women are insatiable nymphomaniacs (is that redundant?); and James Cagney is a one-dimensional actor. Such an underpinning for a movie would not seem, at first glance, to offer much promise. But the one-dimensional acting style of Cagney, which ruined Love Me or Leave Me (the movie with Doris Day based on the life of Ruth Etting), is perfect for this manic-paced farce. For nearly the entire movie, Cagney unleashes a barrage of breathless monologues, simultaneously exhausting and amazing the viewer. That the movie is a farce does not mean it lacks a serious side. The stereotypes are so rigid, and played so extravagantly, that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the movie is designed to outrage those insulted (especially southerners) and mock anyone who agrees with the stereotypes. Cagney himself is mocked by an MP who does a Cagney imitation in response to one of Cagney's imperious orders. On another level, the movie can be seen as a critique of censorship. In the Soviet Union, all film had to toe the Communist ideological line. If the same standard were applied to US movies by US censors, the result might well be something like One, Two, Three. And indeed, to ideological purists the world is as simple as one, two, three.
Rating:
Summary: Full of Stereotypes and Spoofs of Stereotypes
Review: This movie is built on the crass stereotyping of national, regional, and personal characteristics: all Germans are heal-clicking former Nazis; Communists on the surface are dedicated ideologists but really crave a life of Western decadence; American southerners (men) are right-wing imbeciles navigating the complexities of life on a few cherished prejudices; young American (southern) women are insatiable nymphomaniacs (is that redundant?); and James Cagney is a one-dimensional actor. Such an underpinning for a movie would not seem, at first glance, to offer much promise. But the one-dimensional acting style of Cagney, which ruined Love Me or Leave Me (the movie with Doris Day based on the life of Ruth Etting), is perfect for this manic-paced farce. For nearly the entire movie, Cagney unleashes a barrage of breathless monologues, simultaneously exhausting and amazing the viewer. That the movie is a farce does not mean it lacks a serious side. The stereotypes are so rigid, and played so extravagantly, that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the movie is designed to outrage those insulted (especially southerners) and mock anyone who agrees with the stereotypes. Cagney himself is mocked by an MP who does a Cagney imitation in response to one of Cagney's imperious orders. On another level, the movie can be seen as a critique of censorship. In the Soviet Union, all film had to toe the Communist ideological line. If the same standard were applied to US movies by US censors, the result might well be something like One, Two, Three. And indeed, to ideological purists the world is as simple as one, two, three.
Rating:
Summary: Cagney at his best, you never know where he's going next.
Review: This warped comedy, set in Berlin just before the wall went up, is one of James Cagney's best. His harried Coca Cola exec. is the poster child for stress. Tapped to take care of his bosses impulsive daughter, Cagney goes through the wringer trying to stay away from disaster. And just when both you and he think the situation cannot get any worse, the bosses daughter runs off and marries an East German Communist. Just wait and see how Cagney, spewing out line after line of rappid fire dialogue, gets out of this mess. Masterfully directed by Billy Wilder, this, unfortunatly, little seen movie is a must see for any series fan of classic cinema, and also for those who just want to laugh.
Rating: 
Summary: things go better with .......
Review: Wilder! And Billy Wilder's comedy [kind of Ninotchka revisited] with Horst Buchholz aptly named "Piffl" as the foreign son-in-law to Cagney's Coca Cola Executive. [Briefly - teen daughter marries semi-beatnic type Communist behind father's back - he rushes to Berlin to damage control.....] Witty with often hilarious moments - [especially the "3 ballooned" drag sequence, GREAT visual, yes even in 1961!]- and worth seeing intact today. Today? Where [what?] is the Iron Curtain, youth might ask .... this movie explains it all in delightful terms [and why possibly it was erected.] Made during the Camelot period, it reflects some of that "innocence". For more Wilder fun - see Garbo's "Ninotchka" ["wery, wery funny too"].
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