They didn’t have much of an idea for this film, which is really just about PR man Errol Flynn trying to nab rich Walter Connolly as a client (low stakes), but given that it’s as if the filmmakers then went “right, let’s make the best movie we can given that”, and they just went for it. So you have a silly, weak central idea done with tremendous vim and gusto. Errol Flynn has the time of his life as the unscrupulous PR man, and watching him here I think he could have even handled being in something like His Girl Friday - especially as he bounces so well off Rosalind Russell, who plays a reporter.
Russell is usually excellent playing snappy reporters and she is so here; so too is Olivia de Havilland as a slightly dim but energetic heiress, always up for a bit of fun. Indeed, this is surprisingly sexy, with couple swappings, Errol wooing both Olivia and Ros and both enjoying him, with a scene of the three of them running around the pool in their bathers. Patric Knowles is a bit of a drag as the fourth lead – he tries but it’s like three gold plated stars and poor old platinum Patric. But don’t worry, they shunt him out of the way for most the running time.
This script is really a collection of set pieces – there’s a sequence in a nightclub behind a coffin, one where Flynn breaks into Connolly’s house to sabotage a model train race (its that sort of script), the model train race, Errol having two dates for the night, the final wedding sequence. Michael Curtiz directs at a break neck speed, the cast are excellent (except Knowles), there’s even some believable softy spots where Flynn engineers Connolly to donate money to an infantile paralysis centre. Some silly bits, though - for instance, its not needed that Errol also be the former editor of Ros's newspaper - it's something that only exists so Errol can wage a campaign against Connolly then disappears.
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