You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

“Do anything so long as you make my wife believe I was telling the truth when I was lying to her!”

            You’ll Never Get Rich is one of those classic films that drive me crazy. There is a lot of lying, misunderstanding, and utter craziness. It started off decently and then just spiraled into a huge WTF and bombed big time.

            Theater impresario Martin Cortland traveled into New York City to buy his wife a present for their anniversary. He bought his wife an unremarkable back cheap back scratcher while he bought his potential mistress a diamond bracelet. Martin has his eye on a chorus dancer named Shelia Winthrop (Rita Hayworth).

            In dance practice Shelia purposefully messes up the routine a little bit so she can get to dance one on one with the choreographer Robert Curtis (Fred Astaire). After rehearsals Martin calls Shelia into his office to give her the bracelet. Unfortunately before he can give the present to her Shelia leaves and his wife walks in. She takes the bracelet from his pocket and looks at it. The bracelet has Shelia’s name on it so Martin tries very hard to cover for himself by saying he bought it for Robert since he is the one who likes Shelia. After the wife leaves Martin tells Robert he needs him and Shelia to pretend they are in love and to go to a club that night so his wife will hopefully be convinced.

            At the club while they are dancing Robert confesses to Shelia he likes it when she messes up so he can dance with her. When Martin and his wife arrive the situation gets a little messy. Shelia does her best to be a little over the top in her affections for Robert to make him uncomfortable to get back at him for playing along with Martin. When they both leave the table a reporter comes by and asks the wife who Robert and Shelia were. The wife tells the reporter they are happily in love and engaged.

            The following day Shelia is furious when she sees the announcement in the paper about her “engagement” to Robert. She thinks he is the one who told a reporter the story. Her brother Tom is in the army and has been placed at training camp close to their home. He comes down to the city to see Shelia and their aunt. Tom comes by just as Robert is driving up. Shelia, Tom, and their aunt play a game to get back Robert. Their game scares Robert right out of the apartment.

            Robert has enough of Martin and is scared to death of Tom. He hears he has been drafted and has to report for duty immediately. Robert is thrilled because it means he will be away from all his problems. Unfortunately at camp bigger problems arise after he punches one of the commanding officers in the face while still in a nightmare one night and Tom comes to the base. He also digs himself into a deeper hole by impersonating an officer.

            Other stuff happens that I cannot remember- well nix that “I cannot remember” bit it is more like I stopped paying attention.

            You’ll Never Get Rich quickly got very boring and very messy. I did not like Fred Astaire’s character at all. Robert was a little silly and not very entertaining. Rita Hayworth was the only decent actor and character in the whole film. I will say that Astaire and Hayworth’s dancing scenes together were amazing. She kept right in sync with him. If you did not know Hayworth was a dancer before she became an actress. She made dancing look so effortless. Unless you are a fan of either Fred Astaire or Rita Hayworth You’ll Never Get Rich not a classic film that is a must see. 

Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939)

The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt had so much potential. That is something I hate about films sometimes when they have the potential to be good and it is wasted. There are so many reasons why The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt had potential: a cracksman turned “spy-smasher” as the poster claims; Warren William, Ida Lupino, and Rita Hayworth; and some good comedic moments. And all of that fell flat.

            I did pay attention to the story when it began. But as soon as it got a tad bit boring my ADHD kicked in and my mind wandered mercilessly. That happens and it cannot be helped. Well actually it could if I kept my phone away from me so I am not tempted to scroll through Tumblr. Anyway, blah blah blah, here is what I got out of the story when I did manage to focus on it only because Tumblr was not loading.

             On a rainy night Michael Lanyard (Warren William) meets two men out on the street. The men put a blind fold on him and walk him into a house to an office. He is placed in front of a man at a desk in a dark room in order for the man behind the desk to remain unknown. The man behind the desk tells Michael he has a job for him opening a safe and he will be paid ten thousand dollars. Michael refuses and they let him leave. The man behind the desk is Jameson (*at least I think that is the correct character. Seriously my brain did not want to fully pay attention*). He is looking to steal plans from the military. Jameson intends on framing Michael because apparently he has an old score to settle with Michael. Jameson has one of his men smoke another type of cigarette for the night before they go off to steal the plans.

            The following morning detectives are called to the Department of War where the plans have been stolen. The detectives reveal that there are only two men who can crack a safe like the one that was broken into and only one of them smokes the brand that was found on the floor and that man is Michael Lanyard aka The Lone Wolf. The detective cannot wait to finally put Michael behind bars.

            When Michael comes home he is greeted by his very upset and very pissed off girlfriend Val Carson (Ida Lupino). Michael left Val that afternoon to go off with a blonde woman and stuck her with the tab. Not long after his return and subsequent lecture from Val, the detectives arrive to speak to Michael. He tells them about the blonde he went out with that afternoon for his alibi. His alibi winds up backfiring because the blonde comes to the house and Val threatens her pretty well.

            Val literally drags Michael to a bar after she put handcuff on the two of them so he would not run away so they can talk. Again Michael’s eye wanders over to a young woman at the bar who is staring at him like she knows him. The young woman named Karen (Rita Hayworth) comes over to the table and gives the story that they had done a job together in Budapest a few years previously. He leaves with Karen to discuss business much to Val’s frustration. Turns out Karen tricked Michael into coming with her to crack a safe that Jameson wants open. It is all part of Jameson’s plan to frame Michael.

            I did not write down in my handy dandy notebook where I take notes on the films I watch what happened at the end. I thought I would remember what happened but I do not. Just know everything is fine, Michael manages to get out of his jam using his intelligence and with some help from Val.

            The cast was not bad. Warren William I just love seeing in films. Put it this way, if I was alive back in thirties William would have been my older actor crush and I would have had it hard for him. The man was just so charming he was not handsome I just love the way he carried himself. The way I feel about Warren William is the same way I feel about William Powell. Neither man was particularly handsome but I just love their charm and personality. William usually played assholes while Powell played wonderful charming men (yes I know Powell started his career playing bad guys in silents). Ida Lupino, god I feel terrible for her in this film. Val was such an annoying character. I could not stand her at all. I will say Val redeemed herself a little in one scene where she creates a story to help out Michael with the detectives but that is it just one scene she was good in! Thank goodness Lupino would get better roles later not too long after this. Rita Hayworth as the bad guy was great. She was cast perfectly. I loved all her scenes.

            The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt was a letdown. I had been looking forward to watching it for the cast and the story sounds good in writing. Yet another film that had potential and blew that potential sky high. It was interesting to see Ida Lupino and Rita Hayworth in early roles before their careers took off in the 1940s. They were both in their early twenties. Besides the cast The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt is really not that great. Or that could be my ADHD riddled mind and exhaustion talking. I would be willing to give this film another chance at another time when I do not have thirty million things going on at once.

 

Angels Over Broadway (1940)

“Darling, you understate the case by three bottles and a thousand tears!”

            I always find it interesting when I watch a film where I really like one thing about and do not care for another thing. I will give the example of when I watched The Razor’s Edge with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. The story and the characters were not bad I just wished that the acting had been better. Something like that I find interesting because most of the time everything usually clicks together or it usually falls apart together in a film, well, for me anyway. This situation happened again to me when I watched the 1940 film Angels Over Broadway. The dialogue was good but the acting and the story were not the greatest.

            The story, unfortunately, did not catch my attention whatsoever so I will make this summary as short as possible from what I did kind of pay attention to.

            Bill O’Brien (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) picks up people to play poker with a gambler and he gets a cut of anything the gambler wins over three thousand dollars. On a rainy night he walks passed a man coming out of a cab. The man, Charles Engle, gives the cab driver a large bill and tells the driver to keep the change. This action captures Bill’s attention so he follows Engle into the club they are in front of. He next sees Engle give the cigarette girl a fifty dollar bill and also tells her to keep the change. Bill thinks Engle is loaded. In reality Engle is contemplating suicide after he embezzled three thousand dollars from the man he works for and is just going out for one last night. Bill gives the gambler a call saying he has a new player who seems to be from out of town and has a lot of money. Now all he has to do is convince Engle to come play.

            At the club is a young woman named Nina Barona (Rita Hayworth) who is trying to get a chance to speak to anyone who might be able to give her a job in a show and a playwright named Gene Gibbons (Thomas Mitchell) whose latest play is just one in a succession of flops and it totally intoxicated. Nina sits down at Engle’s table because she somehow thinks he has connections with a show. Gene was about to leave the club when he was accidentally given Engle’s jacket and found his suicide note. Gene sits down with Engle talks about life and even says he can try to get him the three thousand dollars by getting back some jewels from his ex-wife that are worth a lot. The crusade to get the jewels fails.

            Bill moves in to get Engle to play a round of poker. The truth comes out but Gene says that Engle can play until he makes the three thousand then he could remove himself from the game by saying he has to do something and will be right back. Bill likes the idea but as the game gets close he is not too sure about it.

            After this I completely lost interest and attention.

            The cast could have been so good together. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is one of my favorite classic actors. In the films I have seen him in so far he has been great. In this he started off alright and then just fell. He has a bit of a Noir edge to him and was good at it. Rita Hayworth was just starting out at this point so her acting was not that great. I kind of felt bad for her in some scenes because she was so bad. Thomas Mitchell’s character was drunk the whole time. I was not too crazy about his character even though he was a drunk who was trying to be decent.

            Ben Hecht, one of the greatest screenwriters to ever have graced films, wrote and partially directed it as well. His dialogue was so good. It was a very wordy screenplay. I never mind wordy I like dialogue when it is well written and well performed. The problem was the performances. The performances from the actors could not do justice to the dialogue. Rita Hayworth just bombed most of her scenes it was as if she could not keep up with her dialogue the way the character was supposed to. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. seemed like he was trying too hard and hammed up his dialogue. Thomas Mitchell I think was the only one who actually did justice to his dialogue he was very good.

            Angels Over Broadway had the potential to be very good. The screenplay was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars that year. It deserved it definitely especially because Ben Hecht wrote it. The acting just brings this film down unfortunately. As I said at the beginning the contradiction (if that is the correct way to put it) with the good writing and the bad acting is interesting to see. I will only suggest seeing Angels Over Broadway if you are a fan of either Ben Hecht or any of the actors other than that skip it.