Don't Bet on Women

... which were largely films made for rural audiences. There was the occasional prestige picture like "Bad Girl" (1931), but that was rare.

Edmund Lowe plays the wealthy and dapper Roger Fallon. He has been married once to Doris, and her breaking his heart has made him a confirmed bachelor. When she comes to him and say she wants him to set up a trust fund for her so she can remarry, he readily agrees. This takes him to the office of his lawyer, Herbert Drake (Roland Young) who, although he disagrees with Roger's move, agrees to draw up the paperwork. They then launch into a discussion about women. Roger says all women are bad - that is why he is so generous to Doris, because she taught him this lesson while they were married. Herbert says all women are children, and whether they are good or bad children is entirely the husband's fault.

Well, it turns out that Roger ends up invited to the Fallon home, and meets Herbert's wife (Jeannette McDonald as Jeanne.). He finds her charming, and Roger ends up betting Herbert ten thousand dollars that he can kiss his wife before the weekend is up. The problem is, Jeanne finds out about this bet too, and plans to teach both men a lesson. Una Merkel rounds out the cast doing what she does best, being the mischievous but loyal friend - in this case to Jeanne.

This film has a lovely score that is unfortunately seldom heard. The art deco is beautiful to look at, and everybody here plays their roles with great aplomb. The problem is the script. There is just no meat on the bones. This would have been a great two reel Vitaphone short, but it is just stretched too thin to be an entire film, even a 70 minute one. It makes me wonder if this was one of those films originally intended to be a musical - after all this is Jeannette McDonald's only film of the 30s where she doesn't sing a note - and then the early 30s film musical craze landed with such a thud that Fox decided to forge ahead without the musical portions.

It seems to be going for that Lubitsch touch, but instead of touching it, he just brushed up against it.