This surprisingly primitive 'streamliner' comedy from the Roach Studios -- with the collapse of the comedy short subject market in the mid-thirties, Hal Roach decided to go into feature production, first with films like the TOPPER series and later with second features that timed in at less than an hour -- contains all the standard cheap comedy motifs, including a Murphy Bed -- and runs through them in a rather mechanical fashion as made-it-from-scratch taxi fleet owners William Bendix and Joe Sawyer get tangled up with a girl who tries to kill herself and declares herself their responsibility. The dialogue direction limps and although there are some good gags in the opening scenes, including a music-hating music critic and Jack Norton playing his usual fine comic drunk, there isn't that much in the way of laughs to recommend this piece.
Review of Brooklyn Orchid
