Leaden direction from Fred Newmeyer meets its match in a surprisingly saucy Miriam Hopkins making a very Pre-Code feature film debut in frizzy blonde hair and a bathing suit, aided by saucy dialogue by Preston Sturges. Also featured are a bare-armed Ilka Chase as a lithe young flapper in a backless dress (goodness me, this WAS a long time ago!),Blighty's David Hutcheson (also making his film debut while in the US appearing on Broadway),who was never young; and Amazonian matriarch Winifred Harris, who towers over most of the rest of the cast - men included!

Great fun!

This is the type of drawing room comedy that dominated the 1920's and 30's with both social relevance, a bit of sophisticated humor and a glimpse into a world that depression- era audiences longed to at least get a view of. Frank Morgan is the wealthy patriarch of this family where his son and daughter both find love with partners Morgan is suspicious of.

Miriam Hopkins is the leading lady as Morgan's daughter, falling in love with a noble mechanic (Charles Starrett) while her more irresponsible younger brother (Henry Wadsworth) falls in love with the pretty chorus girl Carole Lombard whom Morgan believes is a gold digger. Delightfully stagy, this is one of the best early sound comedies and features some great lines and a terrifically sassy performance by stage legend on Ina Claire as an eccentric friend of the families.

Lombard has very few scenes, but it's very interesting to see her in several of those with fellow blonde Miriam Hopkins in her very first film. Lombard had been around for a couple of years but was working her way up bit by bit. This film assured her place as one of Paramount's brightest stars, and she shows a penchant for comedy that she wouldn't get to do for a few more years.

Morgan is far from the flibberty- gibbit character that he would play in many of his later films, and it is a reminder that he had started off his acting career in more serious parts. The last scene brings everything together all very nicely with the truth of who each of the major characters are being revealed and Morgan making surprising discoveries as to what class really is.

In the midst of the Great Depression films often focused on the antics of the idle rich, with the best of these being made at Paramount. This film is about a wealthy family that is thrown into chaos when the son wants to marry a chorus girl (Carole Lombard) and the daughter (Miriam Hopkins) wants to marry a mechanic (Charles Starrett). Even though Carole Lombard is second billed in this film, she is practically a statue here -beautiful to look at, but having only a line here and there. This is really Miriam Hopkin's film as Marion Lenox, and she does a great job as the poor little rich girl that doesn't know what she wants until she meets the man of her dreams that turns out to be the family's newly hired mechanic. Frank Morgan plays his part as the father, Bronson Lenox, with all the befuddled flair we've come to expect from him. The whole film comes to a head when Bronson and his brother meet the chorus girl fiancée of Bronson's son at a roadhouse intending to convince the chorus girl to leave his son alone. Unfortunately Bronson's son shows up at the same roadhouse that night as well as Bronson's daughter with the mechanic in tow. There is a big scene between all involved that is only interrupted by a raid on the establishment.

Ilke Chase, as Carole Lombard's close friend and fellow chorus girl, is a great comic touch. The story calls for Carole's character to be sober and responsible, so Ilke is added as a counter to all of that. She physically resembles 30's Warner character actor Aline McMahon, but she has the wildness of all of the Gold Diggers of 1933 rolled into one with Winnie Lightner thrown in for good measure. Her vamping of Bronson Lenox's emotionally embalmed brother is hilarious.

One of the forerunners of the screwball comedies of the 1930's, ironically Miriam Hopkin's part here reminds me a bit of the part that Carole Lombard plays in 1936's "My Man Godfrey". Very entertaining and highly recommended if you run across this one.