Are You Listening?

William Haines, usually a leading man in light romantic comedies in silents and early talkies, has become a bit of a cult figure because his career may have ended because he refused to give up what for those days was a fairly open gay lifestyle, even if not known to the general public. Then again, he just may have outgrown that type of role and his career would have ended anyway. Don't feel bad, he became a renowned interior decorator to the stars.

In this, his last big film, it looks like the studio wanted to put him in a more serious role but couldn't quite decide if the film was a comedy, a romance, a soap opera, or something darker.

It's pre-code in the way the sympathy is tilted toward his relationship with his girl friend and away from his shrewish wife, who seems to have no function in life but to be frigid, criticize everything he does, and demand money.

The plot revolves more around the girl friend and her two sisters and their love lives. Most of the plot strands end up unresolved or resolved in unconvincingly lame fashion.

Not terrible but mostly for those like myself who find most pre-code films interesting for their style and historic interest, even the lesser ones.