What makes this especially entertaining is how it pretends to take itself ever so seriously, but subtly and deliberately, not quite convincingly enough. Humour is often funnier when it's not that obvious and you have to discover it hidden in a serious drama like this.
In this fairly short picture, Warren William has tremendous fun hamming up his moustache twiddling loveable rogue character to a hundred and ten percent. You can't be certain whether it's because you can really sense his own personal enjoyment at playing this role or whether you're being fooled by some good acting but whatever it is, that ninety year old enjoyment is infectious. Although you'll probably forget you've seen this in a few weeks (to be honest, it's not that memorable), you can't help but enjoy watching it.
Since this is a First National B-feature, without the constraints of conforming to the Warner's 'A-picture' conventions, Roy Del Ruth, possibly WB's top director at the time also enjoys this lack of restriction by experimenting with clever shots, wacky camera angles and atmospheric lighting. This makes the result both fun and interesting to watch but it's not just the direction and Warren William which make this picture worth seeing ninety years after it was made. It's actually a good little story with a great snappy script so and if you like 1930s, blue-collar, American speak, you'll find this just swell! Its script benefits from one of the writers being Wilson Mizner. Who? - he was one of America's most celebrated writers having had what might be described as a very eventful life (and yes, movies have been made about him) or as one of his contemporaries said: America's most fascinating outlaw. His street-level wit, nurtured by his own plentiful life experiences add a certain spice to this story which although fairly engaging anyway is made much tastier by the magic of his wordweaving.
Overall, although this is nothing that special with no deep message or even very shallow message, it is reasonably entertaining .
In this fairly short picture, Warren William has tremendous fun hamming up his moustache twiddling loveable rogue character to a hundred and ten percent. You can't be certain whether it's because you can really sense his own personal enjoyment at playing this role or whether you're being fooled by some good acting but whatever it is, that ninety year old enjoyment is infectious. Although you'll probably forget you've seen this in a few weeks (to be honest, it's not that memorable), you can't help but enjoy watching it.
Since this is a First National B-feature, without the constraints of conforming to the Warner's 'A-picture' conventions, Roy Del Ruth, possibly WB's top director at the time also enjoys this lack of restriction by experimenting with clever shots, wacky camera angles and atmospheric lighting. This makes the result both fun and interesting to watch but it's not just the direction and Warren William which make this picture worth seeing ninety years after it was made. It's actually a good little story with a great snappy script so and if you like 1930s, blue-collar, American speak, you'll find this just swell! Its script benefits from one of the writers being Wilson Mizner. Who? - he was one of America's most celebrated writers having had what might be described as a very eventful life (and yes, movies have been made about him) or as one of his contemporaries said: America's most fascinating outlaw. His street-level wit, nurtured by his own plentiful life experiences add a certain spice to this story which although fairly engaging anyway is made much tastier by the magic of his wordweaving.
Overall, although this is nothing that special with no deep message or even very shallow message, it is reasonably entertaining .