One of a series of films Hal Roach made for United Artists. I've a soft spot for these independent outfits who made decently budgeted stuff in the Golden Years of Hollywood - Edward Small and so on - and have a fondness for Roach's Captain Fury.
But this was a hard slog. I only got through it for completion's sake. I mean it's not terrible - it's in focus, everyone's competent, all that. There's just no point to it.
It has a promising set up - gangsters moll Joan Bennett goes home to the house where she grew up, mother was a housekeeper. She falls in love with the son of the house, John Hubbard.
Then it all goes wonky - they remove the parents who own the house for far too long. The story goes off on all these detours - a creepy little guy (George Stone, giving a good performance) accidentally kills a show girl (Lilian Bond) leading to journalists investigate; there's two of them (one played by Adolphe Menjou the other by William Gardan) and then Hubbard decides he wants to be a journalist, and he becomes famous... and all this action drifts to Hubbard and Menjou and basically Bennett could be cut out of the whole film. It feels all wonky.
Victor Mature plays Bennett's gangster boyfriend but his part is too small. Marc Lawrence is in it too. The character of Bennett's mother is thrown away - she's just kind of there.
Everyone's trying - there's rapid patter. It's trying to be a wacky screwball comedy. But it's a dull mess.
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