5/10
Clockwork Farce Doesn't Pass The Time Smoothly
14 June 2019
Reporter James Dunn is at a wedding, explaining how all women are alike, looking for a man to take care of them, when he spots Mae Clarke. Twenty minutes later, they're about to get married, when his editor tells him he's going undercover to investigate a corrupt prison. Dunn writes a note to Miss Clarke, explaining how it's for both of them, and goes off, while his editor rips up the letter.

There are lots of fine comedy bits in this farce directed by William Seiter, including the open prison where Warren Hymer strolls in with two satchels of cash, giving one to warden Sidney Toler for a place to hide out for a few months, and Skippy as Miss Clarke's dog. However, the movie rushes along in its plot in such a clockwork fashion that it seems arch and heartless rather than funny and telling. It's a problem that Fox Films had in this era, before its merger with Zanuck's 20th Century: five credited writers making sure the individual bits worked, without making sure they hung together well. Despite a startlingly original comic thesis that was later used in TWO-WAY STRETCH, it's nothing more than a programmer.

Bob
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