Yours for the Asking

George Raft has come up from the gutter, dragging his pals, James Gleason, Lynn Overman, and Edgar Kennedy with him. Now he's running a gambling joint in Palm Beach. When broke heiress Dolores Costello (credited as "Dolores Costello Barrymore") tries to pawn her jewels in a last effort to break the house, Raft thanks her kindly and takes her into partnership, converting her house into a swanky casino, with Mrs. Barrymore to offer some class.

The pals, however, think Raft is going daffy for the dame, and going high hat. So they hire confidence trickster Ida Lupino and Reginald Owen as her uncle to distract them. However, Owen and Miss Lupino have their own ideas as to how to play this mark.

This typically well cast and funny Paramount comedy runs along its tracks at a good clip. It's not just that I am fond of the players -- I've recently read a book about the Costello family -- and always ready to enjoy the layered performances in a good movie about confidence players. Screenwriters Eve Greene and Philip MacDonald have crafted a superior script, and Alexander Hall shows his usual dab hand at directing comedy. Edgar Kennedy gets to do a slow burn twice!

Yours For The Asking has George Raft running a gambling club on the QT in Miami and one night society woman Dolores Costello has run out of her old money and can't settle up. But Raft takes a shine to her and strikes up an arrangement where she fronts for a swanky upscale type establishment.

The three guys who are Raft's staff are a trio of Damon Runyon type characters James Gleason, Lynne Overman, and Edgar Kennedy who don't see themselves as being around for long in an upscale place. They hire a pair of grifters played by Ida Lupino and Reginald Owen to break up Costello and Raft. But Lupino and Owens are after bigger game.

The problem I see in Yours For The Asking is that Raft is too streetwise to ever cast well as a chump. And Costello beautiful as she is lacks a spark in her performance.

The film is really carried by Gleason, Overman and Kennedy. Paramount should have done a feature with these three they worked very well together.

Yours For The Asking right out of the screwball comedy era of the 30s should have been a bit screwier.

Johnny Lamb (George Raft) operates a gambling house disguised as a farmhouse. One night a society lady (Delores Costello as Lucille Sutton) is tapped out for cash and wants to trade her jewelry for chips. He says nothing doing. When she tells him that her Palm Beach mansion will be foreclosed upon unless she can win a big pot at gambling, Lamb comes up with a different idea. He'll go in partners with her on his gambling operation and pay off the mortgage if he can move his casino into her house and if she will introduce him to her friends and teach him to operate with some class. At the end of a year he'll consider their debt paid and she will have her house back free and clear. Lucille agrees to this arrangement.

But Johnny's three street-wise rather crude friends don't like this new situation so much. They find out Lucille is in love with Johnny and they just assume it is reciprocated. Also, Johnny has been making them dress as servants at their casino jobs and they feel they've been getting the "high hat" from him because of Lucille's influence.

So the three "mugs" come up with a plan. They get two grifters (Ida Lupino and Reginald Owen) to pose as a wealthy society woman and her uncle. They want Lupino to get Johnny to fall in love with her and therefore reduce Lucille's influence on him.

But it works too well. Because Johnny was never in love with Lucille in the first place, he instantly gravitates to Lupino, and she and her grifter friend set out to fleece Johnny for all they can get. Meanwhile the three mugs are completely unaware of the grifting going on.

This was a light piece of fluff in spite of the unrequited love and the imposters taking advantage of Johnny. And although George Raft and Ida Lupino are front and center for most of the running time, it was a good ensemble effort. The trio of mugs was especially well cast with Lynn Overmann as the more subtle of the three, Edgar Kennedy as the ill-tempered grump, and James Gleason as the talkative brains of the three.

Delores Costello was good enough, but at this point she hadn't acted for about five years in the very early talkie days when actresses were still taught to annunciate very clearly in "Singin In the Rain" style. She still seems to have that habit.

Johnny (George Raft) and Lucille (Dolores Costello Barrymore) run an up-market casino but Johnny's pals don't like this world. They prefer the sleazy, down-market joints that Johnny operated beforehand. They hire Gert (Ida Lupino) and Dictionary (Reginald Owen) to sabotage Johhny's feelings towards Lucille and bring him back closer to his pals and to the lower end of the market. Things don't go as planned.

The first thing that should be said about this film is that the picture and sound quality are poor. As a film, it's alright. It's interesting to see Ida Lupino in a comedy role and she does well. Johnny's 3 henchmen with ridiculous names are the standard thick, buffoon-types and are included to provide humour. They're just not ever very funny. No-one is really. Dolores Costello Barrymore also has a stupid name but that has nothing to do with the film. In fact, after a poor start, her character of "Lucille" comes off best in the film. George Raft is OK in the lead and the whole experience is just lightweight nonsense. There are no stand-out scenes....it just chugs along.

Because of the film's poor quality, it's quite an easy film to abandon. Or you may fall asleep.......I did on two separate viewings. This film took me three goes! However, that might be because I kept trying to watch it after a satisfying meal.

This was a real treat...to catch George Raft and Ida Lupino and one of the best supporting casts I have ever seen, including the little poodle.

Even the names of the characters - one, because of his impeccable English is called "Dictionary" and another "Bicarbonate". The plot is excellent and revolved around the friendship between a shady and illegal casino owner and an impoverished society woman. This evolves into a partnership. Considering this was 1936 (and pre-Hayes) there are some risque lines as when the society woman says to the crook as he drops her off after a night at the casino "what would you like for breakfast?" There are lots of terrific fun turns in this movie and the 3 henchmen are not to be missed. A treasure of a movie. I give it 8 out of 10.