Love on Wheels

Jack Hulbert meets Leonora Corbett, loses Leonora Corbett and in the end, finds her again in a bright, silly little plot which involves many eccentric dances. Although Hulbert has been described as Britain's (poor) answer to Fred Astaire, the two had little in common. Astaire was a serious dancer who invented much of classical movie dancing and reshaped the form; Hulbert was a comedian and eccentric dancer who shaped his dances to fit current ideas. Aside from the fact that they were the most famous dancers in their era and milieus, they had little in common.

With that in mind, we can look at this movie on its own terms and find it a success. Hulbert dances very well and does his comedy bits, whether they be with stooge Gordon Harker or opponent Edmund Gwenn very amusingly. His choreography is of the leg show or music hall variety. Whether Hulbert or devising store windows in which shapely chorines model stockings, Miss Corbett is playing piano for and reforming a club of sentimental burglars or Harker is being chased through a department store in a variety of costumes assembled from the store's departments, there are a lot of laughs here and enough of plot to keep the audience happy until the end.

As my TV guide says, "a department store assistant becomes publicity conscious" - doesn't make for much of a movie, huh? Well that's pretty much all it is. The plot could fill the back of a matchbox, but the songs are enjoyable and there's a bit of slapstick and other funnies. The interesting part was at the beginning, on the bus, no one speaks for at least 5 minutes, it's all pantomime. Which is, oddly enough, very effective and fun to watch!