After briefly sharing scenes in "Evelyn Prentice", the legendary William Powell got the now officially starring Rosalind Russell in her first A film. It's a World War I film featuring the MGM gloss and a great supporting cast which includes the young Cesar Romero, veteran villain Lionel Atwill and Binnie Barnes, plus Margaret Dumont in a small part and Samuel S. Hinds.
It's annoyance at first sight for Bill and Roz with her sporting a British accent and him faking all sorts of accents. He fools her on numerous occasion to spend time with her so obviously love is just around the corner for them. It turns out that Powell is part of the secret service as a code expert who just wants to be on the front line rather than performing at a boring desk job, but Roz (who turns out to be the daughter of an espionage specialist), knowing his true identity, arranges for his assignment to be changed. The plot device of code cracking is very unique showing the use of invisible ink in the opening scene then the various ways codes are cracked. An espionage subplot featuring Barnes and Romero as the bad guys is mixed in with the romantic plot which keeps things hopping.
The mixture of war intrigue, light romance and verbal comedy helps this become an intriguing film that's not quite a classic but very enjoyable on many levels. For a good quarter of the film, it's a witty, intelligent screenplay that could have been planned for any combination of MGM A list star, and Russell ends up being a fine sub for Myrna Loy. She's appropriately daffy yet strong, parading around with suffragette signs one moment then slipping Powell sleeping pills the next right after he's taken a stay awake potion. But half way through the film, Russell begins to seem to just be in the way and the earlier strengths of her character vanish. Atwill, as Powell's supervisor, is excellent, and Barnes is a fascinating femme fatal villainess. The last 10 minutes just become too absurd to even be remotely believable, so as a result, the film becomes a sad disappointment that had great possibilities but fell into the usual temptation of cliches to be really good.
It's annoyance at first sight for Bill and Roz with her sporting a British accent and him faking all sorts of accents. He fools her on numerous occasion to spend time with her so obviously love is just around the corner for them. It turns out that Powell is part of the secret service as a code expert who just wants to be on the front line rather than performing at a boring desk job, but Roz (who turns out to be the daughter of an espionage specialist), knowing his true identity, arranges for his assignment to be changed. The plot device of code cracking is very unique showing the use of invisible ink in the opening scene then the various ways codes are cracked. An espionage subplot featuring Barnes and Romero as the bad guys is mixed in with the romantic plot which keeps things hopping.
The mixture of war intrigue, light romance and verbal comedy helps this become an intriguing film that's not quite a classic but very enjoyable on many levels. For a good quarter of the film, it's a witty, intelligent screenplay that could have been planned for any combination of MGM A list star, and Russell ends up being a fine sub for Myrna Loy. She's appropriately daffy yet strong, parading around with suffragette signs one moment then slipping Powell sleeping pills the next right after he's taken a stay awake potion. But half way through the film, Russell begins to seem to just be in the way and the earlier strengths of her character vanish. Atwill, as Powell's supervisor, is excellent, and Barnes is a fascinating femme fatal villainess. The last 10 minutes just become too absurd to even be remotely believable, so as a result, the film becomes a sad disappointment that had great possibilities but fell into the usual temptation of cliches to be really good.