Milquetoast clerk, with an office crush on a lively co-worker, gets into a doppelgänger of a mess when a tough gangster breaks out of prison and gets his (or is it ‘their’?) picture on the front page. With Eddie G. Robinson playing the lookalike pair, Jean Arthur breaking out as a major star as 'the crush,' along with tightly constructed farce plotting from Frank Capra go-to scripters Jo Swerling & Robert Riskin, tasty supporting players (plenty of John Ford Stock Company regulars giving out with the cop & newspaper lingo), joined to some neat special effects to double Eddie G.* (check out the cross-overs and cigar smoke that seems to drift past the double-exposure line), you’re all but assured of some high level comedy. What you’d never expect is to see the tidy package was directed by John Ford. And what a swell ‘job of work’ he makes of it. Easing thru the opening scenes before lifting off with near Screwball energy. Fun (and instructive) to see what a sharp, productive studio contract man Ford could have been. Of course, his work took a more personal turn with Americana, Westerns, progressive politics, race issues. But seeing this well-handled formulaic crime-comedy reminds you that he roamed far in a thematically peripatetic career. His outliers just never get written up since they don’t fit into anyone’s pet Ford theory. Yet, he was turning them out as late as MOGAMBO/’53, one of his biggest hits. And nearly as enjoyable as this one.
DOUBLE-BILL: Jean Arthur’s only other Ford pic was her debut, a bit in CAMEO KIRBY/’23 with John Gilbert as a Southern card sharp wrongly accused of murder. (Available on line, but in a lousy print.) It took three decades and a Spencer Tracy heart-attack to get Robinson & Ford back together for CHEYENNE AUTUMN/’64. (Probably not worth the wait.)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Perhaps because he’s playing two roles, Robinson makes this mobster exceptionally nasty, a real brute compared to some of his other bad guys. No need to balance character with a more human side, that’s covered in the nice guy he’s also playing.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Hedging their bets, Columbia’s publicity department initially sold this as a straight mobster pic. (see poster) Once it hit, newspaper ads leaned on the comedy angle showing Eddie G. with a big goofy smile on his face.
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