Unless you're a grumpy, cynical old grouch with no sense of fun, you'll find yourself smiling all the way through this wonderfully silly romantic comedy. It's silly but not annoyingly stupid like some 30s comedies are. So many comedies from the late 30s are either childish slapstick, loud and irritating, Joan Blondell doing the exact same tiresome film over and over again or so "sophisticated" that they're not remotely amusing. This isn't laugh out loud stuff but it's genuinely amusing and proper enjoyable fun.
And talking of Joan Blondell, this is the one where Jessie Matthews gets to do her 'best' gangster's moll impression when she gets tangled up with a bunch of gangsters in New York. New York in a Gaumont-British comedy is of course entirely populated by gangsters, hard-boiled dames and dopey cops! The scenes over there are nuts! She is such a good comedian - definitely not just a pretty face (although she is of course an extremely pretty face!)
Like Jessie Matthews's previous picture, HEAD OVER HEELS this was horribly and unfairly panned by the critics at the time but that was primarily to do with criticisms of Sonnie Hale's direction. By this time the once mighty but now bankrupt Gaumont-British had already sold its main studio, lost its head of production and also its acclaimed director, Victor Saville. Jessie's husband, Sonnie Hale was therefore left to fill the director's chair. Since Saville was so respected, this impertinent upstart was not going to win over any fans in the industry. However I personally can't find too much fault at all with his work. He channels his inner Lubitsch admirably and gives this a lovely warm charming feel. If only they could have got James Stewart it would have been perfect!
This picture is however a massive, massive improvement over HEAD OVER HEELS (which actually wasn't too bad). Don't know where they got their funding from but this looks a real classy big budget production. Despite the nightmare of production problems, despite it being made in a rented space of the their rival's studio you could easily imagine this was made by someone like Paramount across the pond. It's a lovely little picture and such fun!
