Her career may have been rather short, but Sidney Fox had an impressive list of artistic classics including this film version of a Preston Sturges stage classic. She co-stars with the Hungarian born Paul Lukas and Lewis Stone, with Lukas cast as an opera star who keeps Fox away from her boring date at a speakeasy with the aide of drunken attorney Lewis Stone, here nowhere close to his signature role of Judge Hardy. George Meeker is the square fellow who ends up in jail for bothering Fox after she ends up falling for Lukas.
A smart and funny, if stagebound early talkie focuses mainly on Fox and Lukas, but it's Stone who steals the film with his drunken antics, as good as he was in "Grand Hotel". Lukas is delightful as a complete ham, totally over the top. Fox is sweet and subtle. Sidney Toler, just stepping into his role of Charlie Chan, has a great smaller role as a police officer. John M. Stahl directs this with pizazz and sparkle. Without a doubt one of the best plays of the twenties and one of the best film versions of a hit Broadway show. Sturges may not have gotten to adapt his screenplay or direct it, but it definitely has the stamp of class later evidence by his films that he got to write and direct himself.
A smart and funny, if stagebound early talkie focuses mainly on Fox and Lukas, but it's Stone who steals the film with his drunken antics, as good as he was in "Grand Hotel". Lukas is delightful as a complete ham, totally over the top. Fox is sweet and subtle. Sidney Toler, just stepping into his role of Charlie Chan, has a great smaller role as a police officer. John M. Stahl directs this with pizazz and sparkle. Without a doubt one of the best plays of the twenties and one of the best film versions of a hit Broadway show. Sturges may not have gotten to adapt his screenplay or direct it, but it definitely has the stamp of class later evidence by his films that he got to write and direct himself.