The premise, if any self-respecting screwball comedy actually needs one, to this Carole Lombard comedy, is, prima facie, a good one. She's the feckless wife of honest, hard-working-but-struggling criminal lawyer Fred MacMurray and a habitual liar who will spin any yarn to get her way, although she manages to combine it with enough charm and sex-appeal to keep in with hubby and her long-suffering best pal, office-girl Una Merkel.
An aspiring writer who can't get past the first page, she next decides to seek a job, against the wishes of old-fashioned hunter-provider Fred and lands a position, or so she thinks, as secretary to a rich businessman on very generous-seeming terms. Turns out the new employer though is an old lech who only wants her to type the word "yes" to his amorous advances, at which point Lombard runs for the hills, but when she later returns to collect the coat and hat she left in her hurry, the rich guy is dead and the police think she did it.
But between her, MacMurray and Merkel, wires get crossed and it ends up with her admitting the deed under duress and going all the way to trial promoting this lie with MacMurray defending her, hoping that her self-defence plea garners the sympathy of the jury. Then John Barrymore's boozy, weasally blackmailer turns up at court, with inside knowledge of what really happened at the murder-scene, setting up a showdown of sorts with all the major players at the climax.
I am a sometime fan of Lombard's undoubted vivacity and sexiness but after a promising start, the movie flies away with itself as one improbable situation succeeds another and even she can't redeem it. MacMurray sporting a would-be solicitor's 'tache doesn't get a lot to work with while Barrymore over-compensates for his character's similar plight by hamming it up unashamedly. Merkel probably comes off best as her ditzy friend's awakening conscience, until she's required to faint away at the culmination.
All in all, I found the movie to be a bit of a disappointment, an overstretched farce with a rather dubious moral compass at its centre.
And that's the honest truth!
An aspiring writer who can't get past the first page, she next decides to seek a job, against the wishes of old-fashioned hunter-provider Fred and lands a position, or so she thinks, as secretary to a rich businessman on very generous-seeming terms. Turns out the new employer though is an old lech who only wants her to type the word "yes" to his amorous advances, at which point Lombard runs for the hills, but when she later returns to collect the coat and hat she left in her hurry, the rich guy is dead and the police think she did it.
But between her, MacMurray and Merkel, wires get crossed and it ends up with her admitting the deed under duress and going all the way to trial promoting this lie with MacMurray defending her, hoping that her self-defence plea garners the sympathy of the jury. Then John Barrymore's boozy, weasally blackmailer turns up at court, with inside knowledge of what really happened at the murder-scene, setting up a showdown of sorts with all the major players at the climax.
I am a sometime fan of Lombard's undoubted vivacity and sexiness but after a promising start, the movie flies away with itself as one improbable situation succeeds another and even she can't redeem it. MacMurray sporting a would-be solicitor's 'tache doesn't get a lot to work with while Barrymore over-compensates for his character's similar plight by hamming it up unashamedly. Merkel probably comes off best as her ditzy friend's awakening conscience, until she's required to faint away at the culmination.
All in all, I found the movie to be a bit of a disappointment, an overstretched farce with a rather dubious moral compass at its centre.
And that's the honest truth!