A group of 8 professors have spent a load of Miss Totten's (Mary Field) cash writing an encyclopedia and now they are under pressure to finish the blasted thing. Professor Potts (Gary Cooper) goes off to research some slang and meets up with Sugarpuss (Barbara Stanwyck) who is wanted by the police in order to bring a murder charge against her gangster boyfriend Joe (Dana Andrews). She shows up at the lodgings that the professors are sharing with the help of a couple of Joe's henchmen - Pastrami (Dan Duryea) and Anderson (Ralph Peters) - in order to hideout. She bides her time, having fun with the old codgers before it's time to make her move and link up with Joe. However, Professor Potts is under the impression that she is going to marry him and has no idea of her intended plan to marry Joe instead. The gangsters and the professors meet for a showdown and there can only be one winner....
The film is a comedy that is drawn-out in several sequences and has a tedious sentimental segment at a dinner table that loses the audience's attention. The cast are mainly good - especially Stanwyck, Andrews and Duryea - and a mention must also go to the very likable Allen Jenkins who plays the garbage man. He's really "Officer Dibble" as always. Against these good performances are the numpty professors and the landlady Kathleen Howard, with an actually terrible performance from Richard Haydn as one of the professors. If you can't work out which professor he is then you have serious problems. He is DREADFUL with an atrocious comedy voice that fails to register a smile. A real weak link.
Stanwyck provides sex appeal, comedy and strength as demonstrated in her scenes of seduction with Cooper, her teaching the professors to do the conga and her tough, no-nonsense character when confronted by Kathleen Howard. She smacks her one and it's great. There is also a fun segment showcasing Kid Krupa and his orchestra.
Overall, the film is too long and so it cools off at various moments and Cooper plays another dumb-ass like he did in Sergeant York. However, it's a better film than the other Stanwyck film "The Lady Eve" released in the same year.
The film is a comedy that is drawn-out in several sequences and has a tedious sentimental segment at a dinner table that loses the audience's attention. The cast are mainly good - especially Stanwyck, Andrews and Duryea - and a mention must also go to the very likable Allen Jenkins who plays the garbage man. He's really "Officer Dibble" as always. Against these good performances are the numpty professors and the landlady Kathleen Howard, with an actually terrible performance from Richard Haydn as one of the professors. If you can't work out which professor he is then you have serious problems. He is DREADFUL with an atrocious comedy voice that fails to register a smile. A real weak link.
Stanwyck provides sex appeal, comedy and strength as demonstrated in her scenes of seduction with Cooper, her teaching the professors to do the conga and her tough, no-nonsense character when confronted by Kathleen Howard. She smacks her one and it's great. There is also a fun segment showcasing Kid Krupa and his orchestra.
Overall, the film is too long and so it cools off at various moments and Cooper plays another dumb-ass like he did in Sergeant York. However, it's a better film than the other Stanwyck film "The Lady Eve" released in the same year.