mark.waltz Review of Arizona to Broadway

Arizona to Broadway (1933)

The theatrical audience ran out of the theater before intermission, and so might you.

[3/10 · 31 May 2014]

There's a lot right with the first half of this caper with con-artists traveling around the countryside hood-winking the country folk with a medicine show. When James Dunn (posing as a sheriff to escort the medicine man out of the crowd should he be exposed) accidentally ends up with his pretty escort Joan Bennett's purse, he's determined to get it back to her, but knows he can't do that without exposing himself and his racket. Ironically, she ends up on the same train out of town with him and explains her predicament. She's the sister of a bank clerk who was ripped off by one of his clients concerning an estate, and now she's out to find the culprits. By chance, they spot them in a hotel and uncover an elaborate scheme to bring them to justice. But that's only half of the money, and the only half where there's any quality to this misguided film. The later half takes them to New York where they end up behind the scenes of a Broadway musical revue so bad that it wouldn't have ended up in the bottom rung of burlesque shows. Imitations of Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn and Mae West (a man in drag no less!) seem desperate and forced. Bennett is pretty but wasted. Character performers like Herbert Mundin and Walter Catlett seem to be pushing for laughs which never come, making this a film where all the ingredients were there for a comedy which went flat.