Frank Capra's swansong was a reworking of his earlier Lady for a Day. Based on a Damon Runyon story, its gangsters, as always, talk tough but underneath are real pussycats.

Helen Hayes was first choice to play "Apple Annie", a drunken fruit salesperson who tries to convince her long lost daughter that she's a grand, moneyed lady, but she was on a State department tour of Russia, so Bette Davis stepped in.

But the real star of the film is Peter Falk, stealing every scene he lurches through as Joy Boy, the chauffeur of a New York gangster.

The role changed Falk's career, taking him away from the world of hoodlums and into the exalted ranks of comic actordom.