"The Nuisance" is a comedy drama and slight romance that portrays a seedy side of the law profession and justice of the early 1930s. Lee Tracy plays the fast-talking shyster attorney, Joseph Phineas Stevens. He has a crew of crooked collaborators in his ambulance chasing operation. Madge Evans enters the picture as Dorothy Mason, another streetcar accident victim - so Joe thinks. He wants to use her, as he has other accident clients, to sue the streetcar transit company.
But, as Joe falls for Dorothy, his future as an attorney becomes threatened. She was hired by the streetcar company to go undercover and expose Joe's operation as fraudulent. But, Dorothy starts to fall for Joe, and things get more complicated. Toss into this, Joe's old friend and medical shyster, Dr. Buchanan Prescott, played by Frank Morgan, and things get pretty hairy for Joe. Charles Butterworth is a top associate for Joe, as Floppy Phil Montague.
Dorothy is the first person to learn from Joe how and why he became the crooked attorney he is. He relates to her his first experience out of law school, when he believed in justice and helping people. His first client was a man who had lost a leg, and who had a real claim for damages. But, Joe says, he lost the case on a technicality, and the opposing attorney was John Calhoun, the attorney for the streetcar company. So, Joe has been out to get Calhoun and his company ever since. But in his quest for vengeance and "justice," Joe has become exceedingly greedy, and he often hurts and goes against his clients.
Joe also doesn't mind taking some clients to the cleaners who were guilty of things such as robbery or theft. In one such case, his client is Aloysius P. McCarthy, played by Nat Pendleton. As a streetcar operator, McCarthy had been caught steeling nickels from the company. The company caught him with 450 nickels in his lunch pail. When Joe found out that McCarthy had $200 in savings, he took the case. The math is a little strange, as their exchange shows when Joe visits McCarthy in jail. McCarthy says, "I can't figure it. I only stole 50 bucks, and you want two hundred and seventy. So I lose 220 bucks for pinching 50. It don't make sense." Joe replies, "Technocracy, my boy. Technocracy."
That may have been Joe's way of saying, "Crime doesn't pay," but Tracy's character never comes right out and says that. So, what happens with Joe and Dorothy? The ending doesn't really say. Does he straighten up or not? Does she leave or stay? This movie was right in the middle of the Great Depression, yet there's no sign of people out of work in the film. This is a good example for modern audiences of some of the Hollywood efforts to entertain people while taking their minds off the economic crisis of the time.
This movie has one brief scene that is of historical significance. It may be the very first jab by a Hollywood movie studio at Adolf Hitler and Naziism. When Floppy goes to telephone Joe about Mrs. Mannheimer wanting to get her family doctor to look at her fiancé, Willy, she says, "And all good doctors is German." Floppy's reply to her is, "I understand all that's been changed since Hitler was elected."
While the German people had not elected Hitler, through political machinations he had just become the dictatorial head of Germany. Hitler ran for the presidency in the early elections of 1932, as head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), also called the Nazi party. He lost to Paul von Hindenburg, who was reelected; but by November, other elections had given the Nazis the largest number of seats in the Reichstag - the lower house of the German parliament. Still, it didn't have a majority to be able to form a government. So, former leaders, including the outgoing chancellor, urged President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. He did that on Jan. 30, 1933. On March 23, the parliament passed the Enabling Act which allowed the government to issue laws outside of parliament, and that, in turn, led to the complete Nazification of Germany.
This movie was shot during the spring while these later events were taking place in Germany. So, when the movie premiered on May 26, 1933, in New York City, Hitler had been the head of the German government for four months, and Naziism had been entrenched in the law of the land for two months.
But, as Joe falls for Dorothy, his future as an attorney becomes threatened. She was hired by the streetcar company to go undercover and expose Joe's operation as fraudulent. But, Dorothy starts to fall for Joe, and things get more complicated. Toss into this, Joe's old friend and medical shyster, Dr. Buchanan Prescott, played by Frank Morgan, and things get pretty hairy for Joe. Charles Butterworth is a top associate for Joe, as Floppy Phil Montague.
Dorothy is the first person to learn from Joe how and why he became the crooked attorney he is. He relates to her his first experience out of law school, when he believed in justice and helping people. His first client was a man who had lost a leg, and who had a real claim for damages. But, Joe says, he lost the case on a technicality, and the opposing attorney was John Calhoun, the attorney for the streetcar company. So, Joe has been out to get Calhoun and his company ever since. But in his quest for vengeance and "justice," Joe has become exceedingly greedy, and he often hurts and goes against his clients.
Joe also doesn't mind taking some clients to the cleaners who were guilty of things such as robbery or theft. In one such case, his client is Aloysius P. McCarthy, played by Nat Pendleton. As a streetcar operator, McCarthy had been caught steeling nickels from the company. The company caught him with 450 nickels in his lunch pail. When Joe found out that McCarthy had $200 in savings, he took the case. The math is a little strange, as their exchange shows when Joe visits McCarthy in jail. McCarthy says, "I can't figure it. I only stole 50 bucks, and you want two hundred and seventy. So I lose 220 bucks for pinching 50. It don't make sense." Joe replies, "Technocracy, my boy. Technocracy."
That may have been Joe's way of saying, "Crime doesn't pay," but Tracy's character never comes right out and says that. So, what happens with Joe and Dorothy? The ending doesn't really say. Does he straighten up or not? Does she leave or stay? This movie was right in the middle of the Great Depression, yet there's no sign of people out of work in the film. This is a good example for modern audiences of some of the Hollywood efforts to entertain people while taking their minds off the economic crisis of the time.
This movie has one brief scene that is of historical significance. It may be the very first jab by a Hollywood movie studio at Adolf Hitler and Naziism. When Floppy goes to telephone Joe about Mrs. Mannheimer wanting to get her family doctor to look at her fiancé, Willy, she says, "And all good doctors is German." Floppy's reply to her is, "I understand all that's been changed since Hitler was elected."
While the German people had not elected Hitler, through political machinations he had just become the dictatorial head of Germany. Hitler ran for the presidency in the early elections of 1932, as head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), also called the Nazi party. He lost to Paul von Hindenburg, who was reelected; but by November, other elections had given the Nazis the largest number of seats in the Reichstag - the lower house of the German parliament. Still, it didn't have a majority to be able to form a government. So, former leaders, including the outgoing chancellor, urged President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. He did that on Jan. 30, 1933. On March 23, the parliament passed the Enabling Act which allowed the government to issue laws outside of parliament, and that, in turn, led to the complete Nazification of Germany.
This movie was shot during the spring while these later events were taking place in Germany. So, when the movie premiered on May 26, 1933, in New York City, Hitler had been the head of the German government for four months, and Naziism had been entrenched in the law of the land for two months.