User Reviews

This is one of the best of the screwball comedies, and surprisingly it was directed by Otto Preminger! The plot here sounds quite pedestrian -- a somewhat unsuccessful lawyer gets the job of having a family of screwballs all sign a contract to sell a property they inherited. But this family is so screwy (all in rather delightful ways) that his task seems nigh on impossible...until he and the daughter falls in love! Even then it's a bumpy ride to success.

The two primary stars are Ann Southern (as the least wacky in the family) and Jack Haley as the lawyer. Although this was a 20th Century Fox film, Southern soon went to MGM, where I'm not sure that studio fully realized how good she really was...and is in this film. It's a pleasure seeing Jack Haley in something other than "The Wizard Of Oz", though that film was just 2 years off. Haley is an almost forgotten actor now (except for "Oz"), but he certainly had a pleasant on screen persona, and that works very well in this picture.

Edward Everett Horton shows up as a very mismatched fiancé for Southern (until she falls in love with Haley); he does seem a bit too old for the part (she was 28, he was 51)...but it still works. Mary Boland plays the pleasantly nutty mother, John Carradine the mad painter, and a cast of notable character actors play the other parts.

What struck me as especially impressive here is in many scenes many of the characters are talking at the same time. That must have been very difficult to act and to direct. I wondered how many takes some of the scenes took! But it comes smoothly in the final print.

I highly recommend this film if you like those classic screwball comedies. A forgotten gem.

The intrepid cinematagraphic explorer intent on bearding the Screwball Comedy in its natural habitat will make a beeline for the RKO, Columbia, Paramount triangle where he will gorge happily for days. Should he remain unsated he may well make a detour to MGM and Universal but only in extremis would he check out Warners or Fox and especially not the combination of Fox and Otto Preminger. There, of course, he would be guilty of error for in 1937 - arguably the heart of the genre -Fox and Preminger weighed in with Danger: Love At Work which is as wacky as they come albeit 'borrowing' liberally from It Happened One Night (a 'walls of Jericho' rip-off) and You Can't Take It With You (the eccentric clan). It has to be said immediately that Jack Haley is not even a poor man's Cary Grant, Bill Powell, or any other screwball specialist but this doesn't matter so much because co-star Ann Sothern is tremendous and makes it easy to forget both Lombard and Loy. If there is a flaw it is in wasting the opening reel on a verbal description of just how wacky the Pemberton clan is and then actually showing us. The plot is minimal but the supporting players more than make up for it ranging from Mary Boland, John Carradine to a cameo from Elisha Cooke. Whether it would sustain a second viewing is another matter but the first one was great.

An amusing predecessor to "You Can't Take It With You", although in his one I'm pleased to note that the screwy family is just as scatterbrained at the conclusion at it was at the beginning! This one also has a fantastic array of my favorite character players, headed by the inimitable Edward Everett Horton in a part right up his alley as a bullying know-it-all. E.E. Clive turns in another of his risibly sardonic portrayals as the family butler, and there's a delicious cameo by Spencer Charters whose meek, country-bumpkin cab- driver makes a splendid stooge for Horton. Mary Boland, whose specialty is intoning nonsense with an air of outrage, gets some wonderful opportunities – e.g. the running gag with the mop closet (topped by Clive's complaint, "I can't lift your bag, sir!") is especially funny. Maurice Cass, cast somewhat against type as the one phoney amongst the genuine eccentrics (although in these pollution-conscious days, the spinster aunt's electric car is not nearly as funny today as it must have seemed in 1937), does not employ his usual fruity accent and is almost unrecognizable under long hair and a beard.

The other character players, however, are all rigidly cast to form. Pangborn has a hilarious little bit as a nonplussed waiter, whilst Paul Hurst makes a memorable impression in his usual policeman bit. Some these roles could have been built up more. I suspect that George Chandler did in fact have an extra scene that was left on the cutting-room floor, as this would have added more point to the comic business with his car. But, all in all, this movie is a terrific feast for vintage movie lovers. Sothern and Haley do quite well as the leads, although the film does tend to lose momentum in the romantic stretches. All the same, the couple do have a nice little song which is used as a theme throughout.

To my mind, this film marks the beginning of Otto Preminger's distinctive visual style – the long takes, fluid camera-work and great use of long tracking shots. These are all in evidence here. In fact, the tracking shots at the railroad depot are staged with particular skill and ingenuity. And they are not merely decorative, but are used to make a valid comic point. Virgil Miller's attractive photography has his usual trademark of deep, velvety blacks. In fact, production values are generally first rate.