A bored & beautiful SMARTY enjoys goading both of her husbands into fits of jealous rage.
This very bizarre little comedy from Warner Bros., which sneaked in under the wire before the imposition of the Production Code, actually espouses physical abuse as the secret ingredient needed in keeping the romantic spark alive in marriage. This distressful assertion is promoted by skillful players and smug dialogue, but to no avail.
Joan Blondell, as blonde & curvaceous as ever, is portrayed as an intensely annoying young virago with all the charm of an acid bath. Endlessly nagging, the script gives her one shrill note to play, which she does with unnerving tenacity. In most of her other roles of the period she played a smart & sassy gal who has to fight her way to happiness by final fadeout. Here, Blondell starts with everything and seems determined to claw her way to the bottom again. Must be some sort of mental aberration.
Patrician Warren William & nervous Edward Everett Horton supplied wonderful moments in dozens of Golden Age films. Here, as the two men caught in Blondell's web, although they make valiant efforts, they seem out of place in the rather sordid storyline.
Rounding out the cast as two friends seemingly without meaningful lives of their own, viewers will probably find Frank McHugh to be distressingly simpleminded and pretty Claire Dodd vindictive & catty. Neither exemplify the sort of friend one would want to have during a time of domestic crisis.
Perhaps it would be well to quote a single paragraph from celebrated journalist Harriet Hubbard Ayer's essay `What Not To Do,' published in CORRECT SOCIAL USAGE (The New York Society Of Self-Culture, 1903) `Don't nag; there's nothing in it but hateful thoughts for all concerned, and such thoughts are germs that breed deceit on one side and ungovernable temper on the other. At the end of the road is division of hearts, often a divorce court.' Blondell & Company should have paid heed.
This very bizarre little comedy from Warner Bros., which sneaked in under the wire before the imposition of the Production Code, actually espouses physical abuse as the secret ingredient needed in keeping the romantic spark alive in marriage. This distressful assertion is promoted by skillful players and smug dialogue, but to no avail.
Joan Blondell, as blonde & curvaceous as ever, is portrayed as an intensely annoying young virago with all the charm of an acid bath. Endlessly nagging, the script gives her one shrill note to play, which she does with unnerving tenacity. In most of her other roles of the period she played a smart & sassy gal who has to fight her way to happiness by final fadeout. Here, Blondell starts with everything and seems determined to claw her way to the bottom again. Must be some sort of mental aberration.
Patrician Warren William & nervous Edward Everett Horton supplied wonderful moments in dozens of Golden Age films. Here, as the two men caught in Blondell's web, although they make valiant efforts, they seem out of place in the rather sordid storyline.
Rounding out the cast as two friends seemingly without meaningful lives of their own, viewers will probably find Frank McHugh to be distressingly simpleminded and pretty Claire Dodd vindictive & catty. Neither exemplify the sort of friend one would want to have during a time of domestic crisis.
Perhaps it would be well to quote a single paragraph from celebrated journalist Harriet Hubbard Ayer's essay `What Not To Do,' published in CORRECT SOCIAL USAGE (The New York Society Of Self-Culture, 1903) `Don't nag; there's nothing in it but hateful thoughts for all concerned, and such thoughts are germs that breed deceit on one side and ungovernable temper on the other. At the end of the road is division of hearts, often a divorce court.' Blondell & Company should have paid heed.