A doubly good gimmick goes to waste in this lighthearted drama about Dueling Jewel Thieves, a B-pic sorely missing the high style & class players needed to pull it off. Director Lew Landers keeps the storyline clear enough, but hasn’t the time, budget or inclination to make things sparkle when two sets of diamonds (one fake, one real) are stolen. Police Commissioner Samuel S. Hinds sets a trap for his two prime suspects (and their partners), but a series of double crosses threaten to trip him up. Preston Foster, an author of witty crime novels, largely controls the action as Prime Suspect #1, along with comic valet Cecil Kellaway (making like Eric Blore in an early Hollywood appearance); all the while romancing Prime Suspect #2 Whitney Bourne, there with her thuggish partner in crime Paul Guilfoyle. Fortunately, June Johnson & Arthur Lake as a young couple thrilled to be at the scene of a crime, hang around as comic relief. Johnson, who’d soon make a fast fade, is a pain, but Lake, just months before he started playing Dagwood in the long-running BLONDIE series, is an adorable hoot, a real comic find who could have gone on to much better things. Pity.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Director William Dieterle got a lot closer to the Ernst Lubitsch mark on these things in his little known JEWEL ROBBERY/’32 (Kay Francis; William Powell) even though it pulls the plug somewhere in the middle of Act Two.
No comments:
Post a Comment