Party Girl

There's nothing really shocking or even interesting about this precode, not even for 1930. It's basically about a ring of professional "party girls" that work for one particular madam and go around entertaining bored businessmen. Doug Fairbanks Jr. Is the partying son of the head of a manufacturing concern who crashes one of these parties one night and winds up with two souvenirs he could have done without - a huge hangover and a party girl wife. In the meantime, he's in love with his father's secretary who is a former party girl herself.

What is really notable here is the extremely bad acting. I've seen Doug Fairbanks Jr. In several of his early roles, and even if the films weren't that great, Doug's acting was OK. Here he really hams it up, along with the rest of the cast. I can only chalk it up to bad directing by Victor Halperin who made a number of unmemorable B pictures in the 30's, one of the exceptions to that being 1932's excellent "White Zombie".

The one strange thing that keeps happening in this film that I've never seen before is that everyone seems to think it's OK to drive your car into the service elevator of tall buildings and emerge on the floor of your choice. Fairbanks and his friends do it when they are crashing the party, and the police do the same thing at the end.

My verdict would be to pass on this film, even if you're a precode fan. It's neither cheesy nor entertaining enough to be worth your time.