With substantial credits earlier in their careers, vet director William Beaudine (check out the late Mary Pickford silent, SPARROWS/’26, an astonishment) and writer Fred Niblo Jr, (Oscar nom’d for Howard Hawks’ THE CRIMINAL CODE/’30 ) had been working their way down the Hollywood ladder for some time when they made this typically drab looking mystery for Monogram Pictures over on Poverty Row. Yet behind the Grade Z production values is a neat little thriller with solid comic possibilities director Beaudine has neither time nor budget to bring out properly. Easy to imagine, say, Ann Southern & Franchot Tone making this as one of her B+ MAISIE films over at M-G-M.* Instead, we get also-rans Warren Douglas & Jane Frazee as leads in a mistaken identity mob tale that sees Douglas’s regular Joe beaten up when a two-bit mob enforcer misidentifies the lowlife Mr. Big wants punished. Douglas, hoping to sort this out and maybe get a bit of revenge, hasn’t enough info to get the police involved so he turns amateur dick, helped by a decent looking dame (with a big secret!) who just happened to be on the scene when one of these goons spoke a bit too openly. Together, they’ll stumble their way toward romance and a major crime bust; this time with the police around to clean up the mess. Slightly better acting would have done wonders in covering up Monogram’s bargain-basement sins of production. (The ‘comic relief’ wife a particular horror. Yikes!) But worth its running time (just over an hour) in spite of the missteps.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: *Ann Southern & Franchot Tone made a pair of detective & wife comedies (FAST & FURIOUS/’39 - not seen here), but no MAISIE. Tone’s in enough classics to be remembered today (ADVISE & CONSENT; MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY), but Southern less so. See her at her best in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES/’49. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-letter-to-three-wives-1949.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The film opens with a written prologue all about how small incidents can play a big role in our lives. Its pseudo-seriousness giving no clue of the film’s underlying comic tone. Did they just get a case of the giggles as they shot or purposefully add it on during pre-production?
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