User Reviews

Frank McHugh is one of the unsung comics of the 1930's. Usually Bogart, Cagney or Joe E. Brown's sidekick in many Warner Brothers films for over a decade, he was consistently good and was always ready to add a lot of fun to even the weakest of scripts. Here, he is in the lead, and he gets a really great leading lady not yet the superstar she would be in the late 40's and 50's----Jane Wyman. It took Warner Brothers a long time to realize what a powerhouse actress they had on their hands, so they kept moving her around in roles that Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell and Ann Sheridan either turned down or were too busy to take on. Here, Wyman plays a bit of a nagging girlfriend of the hero, an office worker who has a crush on a beautiful socialite (Diana Lewis). McHugh loves this socialite so much that he takes a knife and cuts her photo out of a newspaper a man is reading while the subway they are on is arriving in Times Square! That should tell you what kind of film you're getting into, and in a short 56 minutes, there are that many laughs. The trouble really begins for McHugh and Wyman when McHugh starts bidding on the half naked statue of Lewis being auctioned off. I seem to remember seeing this statue in a Carole Lombard movie (the same year's "Fool For Scandal" I think), and while the statue may not be Diana Lewis, it does resemble her. Cora Witherspoon is amusing as Wyman's nagging mother, and Berton Churchill as Lewis's overbearing senator father is funny as well. The auction sequence reminds me of two other great auction sequences in films---the World War II Spy caper "All Through the Night" and Cary Grant's disturbance of the auction in "North By Northwest".

Overall, this film is simply about providing its audience with a lot of laughs in a short period of time while waiting for the "A" picture to start. Don't expect Hepburn and Tracy or Powell and Loy, but as cinematic history, it's worth as a look into the career of a fabulous character actor in a rare lead role and a starlet on the rise who would end up becoming one of the biggest stars of all time.

Let's face it, Frank McHugh was no leading actor. He was generally in supporting roles during his movie career so this was certainly a change for him. In addition, we have a very young Jane Wyman in a role which she would later be unaccustomed to-a selfish, ready to dominate young woman. The real steal the scenes here is Cora Witherspoon, who is quite funny as Wyman's mother-both are ready to totally dominate McHugh who has his own dream girl in mine.

The plot is rather silly as McHugh buys a statue at an auction and soon becomes the target of people wanting it.

Independence and domination don't mix and this film proves it.