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Monday, November 12, 2018

THE GOLDEN FLEECING (1940)

No more than a pleasant programmer, but with that rarest of features, a distinct comic voice. And not just any voice, but S. J. Perelman*, writing with wife Laura. Lew Ayres, in between Dr. Kildare movies, is the hapless life insurance salesman who can finally marry girlfriend Rita Johnson after selling a big policy . . . to mob informer Lloyd Nolan. Yikes! The guy’s got a bull’s eye on his back. (Bob Hope in ALIAS JESSE JAMES & Danny Kaye in THE MAN FROM THE DINER’S CLUB got in similar jams.) The structure is farce, but with Perelman consistently finding smart/funny ways to do dumb things. Packed with plenty of plot reverses & wild gags, it’s sensible silliness, short & sweet, with excellent support all ‘round. Virginia Grey’s moll especially good and even overcooked vaudevillian Leon Errol as Ayres’ xylophone playing father-in-law getting good laughs. In tone, a lot like Preston Sturges’s CHRISTMAS IN JULY, released just two months after this, with both films featuring Sturges regular William Demerest as well as a $25 thou reward.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Perelman’s best known film work: MONKEY BUSINESS/’31 and HORSE FEATHERS/’32 for the Marx Bros. But pair this one with Sturges’s CHRISTMAS IN JULY.

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