1h 12min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 7 February 1941 | b/w
Director: Busby Berkeley
Stars: John Shelton, Virginia Grey, Albert Dekker, Charles Butterworth, Donald Meek, Reginald Owen.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033400/
Watched online, ok print.
This followed the prior film online, and I was halfway through by the time I finished writing up the prior. Seeing the director, and reading a review that said it has a surprise ending, I decided to finish this.
Well, I'm not sure what the surprise was supposed to be. The unknown writer JS decides to take a job as pulp fiction writer after receiving feedback that the novel he thought was his best was pulp, and after reading it that night (after many years), agreed that it was pulp.
Also, he marries VG, but that was completely predictable. What surprised me throughout was the character she played. I'm used to seeing VG as the bitter semi-star of a tableau/revue show. Here she was a derivative of Jean Arthur, competent gal friday that keeps the company running without getting the rewards of ownership, plus she fell for the author, so she showed a warm side.
Perhaps the surprise was the fact that DM, who would run the edge of the penthouse roof to get to the turkish bath nearby, finally lost his footing. Or more so, that the towel wrapped around him was sufficient to hold him on some hook outside the building.
CB did not play his usual persona, and was not at all amusing. He was a generic sidekick to AD, who was playing a derivative of Edward Arnold/Pat O'Brien bossman/swindler.
I have to give this a 5 to prevent me from watching it again. Although JS is competent, he lacks charisma, so I don't really care what happens to him. He spent 22 of his 39 films in uncredited roles, and I don't recognize the films where he gets screen credit, and only in 8 does his name appear in the "stars" section of the IMDb filmosearch tool (only 4 names per film).
It was good to visit pre-war America again.
MGM, dir. Berkeley; 5+
