Tired of her hum-drum housewife life, Helen Broderick spends every waking free moment of her existence involved in trying to win one contest or another, sometimes to the consternation of her sometimes in the shadows husband (the adorable Victor Moore). The contest she desperately wants to win concerns "Happy Noodles Soup", and this takes Broderick and Moore to Atlantic City where, in typical early sitcom fashion, lots of amusing things happen as Moore proves himself more the homemaker and Broderick simply lousy at making a bed. This doesn't sit well with their daughter (Anne Shirley, who got an Oscar Nomination the same year for "Stella Dallas") who thinks this is beneath them, but uses the situation to finds romance. Moore, who hates "Happy Noodles", uses the situation to try to find a little fun outside of his regular life as a barber, but thanks to Broderick's pragmatic thinking, avoids getting into trouble until he convinces the beleaguered husbands to get revenge against their social climbing wives.
Moore and Broderick, teamed together the previous year with Astaire and Rogers in "Swing Time", have a nice, if amusingly antagonistic, chemistry together, and play off each other's temperaments perfectly. They got together one more time the very same year for "We're on the Jury", and proved that you don't have to be young and beautiful to headline a story. RKO programmers like this were amusing second features which paved the way for television sitcoms in the 1950's. Broderick, one of the great wise-crackers of the 1930's, has a magnetic smile, and Moore, with that sad old dog look of his, gets laughs just by opening his mouth and sighing. The sight of Moore in an old fashioned men's bathing suit being measured as a contestant in the "Mr. America" contest is hysterical, as is the men's march they do to stick their thumb to their nose against the ultra proud wives. Shirley really has little to do, tossed in for some young box office assurance, but Moore and Broderick would have gotten laughs and won over the younger crowd even without her.
Moore and Broderick, teamed together the previous year with Astaire and Rogers in "Swing Time", have a nice, if amusingly antagonistic, chemistry together, and play off each other's temperaments perfectly. They got together one more time the very same year for "We're on the Jury", and proved that you don't have to be young and beautiful to headline a story. RKO programmers like this were amusing second features which paved the way for television sitcoms in the 1950's. Broderick, one of the great wise-crackers of the 1930's, has a magnetic smile, and Moore, with that sad old dog look of his, gets laughs just by opening his mouth and sighing. The sight of Moore in an old fashioned men's bathing suit being measured as a contestant in the "Mr. America" contest is hysterical, as is the men's march they do to stick their thumb to their nose against the ultra proud wives. Shirley really has little to do, tossed in for some young box office assurance, but Moore and Broderick would have gotten laughs and won over the younger crowd even without her.