George Brent is the only big name WB star in this one, and he plays Bill Austin, a sailor who loses his right leg to a dirigible crash. So he is honorably discharged by the navy, but at a time when anybody with any kind of disability was looked upon as defective, Austin is looking for work during the Great Depression among an army of unemployed men who have no disability. The search goes on for months. Finally, he is determined to get a job as a salesman at the Rick's Lumber Company, and he manages to do just that, although he has to go over the head of the two actual heads of the company to the retired owner of the company.
He succeeds beyond the point of the lumber company to even deliver product, and then Austin solves even that problem. It's just a shame we really don't get to see how he does it except for one brief scene. Austin has been somebody that the owner, Cappy Ricks sees almost like a son. But when he threatens to take Cappy's daughter away from him via marriage (Anita Louise as Margie), Cappy is not so happy about having to live alone and decides it is time to give Austin the "blue vase" test.
Now that test eats up a very large part of the film running time and amounts to an impossible task that nobody has ever been able to perform before. If Austin passes he gets to run the Shanghai office and Cappy figures he gets to keep his daughter. If he fails, he has agreed to fire Austin and he figures he STILL gets to keep his daughter.
How you feel about this film is going to amount to how much you enjoy the mechanics of this "blue vase" test. If you find it tedious you would probably rate this film a 5. If you find it fascinating and funny - I did - you would probably rate this film a 7 or 8.
Kudos to casting John Eldredge as the unlikable actual head of Cappy's lumber part of the business. He has zero compassion and likeability and he plays this role completely believably. What is unbelievable is that he was Cappy's daughter's beau until Bill Austin came along.
There really is little intense conflict going on and thus this is a nice film to watch if you are recovering from a nervous breakdown. What is really interesting is how some lines of dialogue that seem very precode got thrown into this production code era film and the censors either approved it or didn't notice in the first place. I'd recommend this one as unusual and entertaining.
He succeeds beyond the point of the lumber company to even deliver product, and then Austin solves even that problem. It's just a shame we really don't get to see how he does it except for one brief scene. Austin has been somebody that the owner, Cappy Ricks sees almost like a son. But when he threatens to take Cappy's daughter away from him via marriage (Anita Louise as Margie), Cappy is not so happy about having to live alone and decides it is time to give Austin the "blue vase" test.
Now that test eats up a very large part of the film running time and amounts to an impossible task that nobody has ever been able to perform before. If Austin passes he gets to run the Shanghai office and Cappy figures he gets to keep his daughter. If he fails, he has agreed to fire Austin and he figures he STILL gets to keep his daughter.
How you feel about this film is going to amount to how much you enjoy the mechanics of this "blue vase" test. If you find it tedious you would probably rate this film a 5. If you find it fascinating and funny - I did - you would probably rate this film a 7 or 8.
Kudos to casting John Eldredge as the unlikable actual head of Cappy's lumber part of the business. He has zero compassion and likeability and he plays this role completely believably. What is unbelievable is that he was Cappy's daughter's beau until Bill Austin came along.
There really is little intense conflict going on and thus this is a nice film to watch if you are recovering from a nervous breakdown. What is really interesting is how some lines of dialogue that seem very precode got thrown into this production code era film and the censors either approved it or didn't notice in the first place. I'd recommend this one as unusual and entertaining.