I Sell Anything

I Sell Anything features Pat O'Brien as a fast talking auctioneer who operates from a store on Second Avenue who boasts he can sell anything to anybody.

As Spot Cash Cutler, Pat has one busy afternoon when he takes in Ann Dvorak who tries to lift a watch from him because she hasn't eaten in a few days. Things like that happened during the Depression. But also he gets himself good and taken when he lets go for Fifty dollars a silver belt buckle that was owned and designed by Cellini. The glamorous Claire Dodd who bought it from him then turns around and sells it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $5000.00.

Of course Pat's hot under the collar having been taken like that. It's his pride more than anything else that's hurt. So he goes to her place on Fifth Avenue and demands a cut. Now he has about as much standing to squawk, legal or otherwise, as I do. But Dodd's intrigued with him.

Pat should have listened to the advice of his faithful assistant Roscoe Karns and stayed well clear of Dodd. She's got quite a ride in store for him and for that you have to hope TCM runs this film again in the near future.

We're all used to seeing Pat O'Brien as the fast talking streetwise con man, but we're not used to seeing him get taken. That's the gimmick here in I'll Sell Anything. Might make one curious to watch.

O'Brien is in a comfortable part for him as is Roscoe Karns. Ann Dvorak and Claire Dodd are in their usual good girl/bad girl roles.

Actually a good thing Dvorak is around as a choice, although she really doesn't contribute anything to the story except offer O'Brien an alternative woman.

Still it's an amusing 71 minutes.

When "I Sell Anything" begins, you see that 'Spot Cash' Cutler (Pat O'Brien) is an auctioneer at a really sleazy joint. He employs shills to help him drive up the prices and cheats customer after customer with phony stories and hollow promises. Eventually, he meets up with Barbara (Ann Dvorak) and despite his being hard-edged and nasty, she falls for him. He also meets up with a high-class lady (Clair Dodd) who buys some crap off him...and it turns out to be worth quite a bit and Cutler is angry that one of his customers actually DID get a bargain! Which one will he fall in love with...the poor lady in need or the one sharp enough to actually best him? And which one is best for the 'ol rogue?

So is this any good? Well, it's a mixed bag. A HUGE problem is that no one is very likable--especially Cutler. You want him to be destroyed since he is a crook. But, O'Brien is amusing nonetheless and the film worth seeing, though hardly a must-see.

A young and energetic Pat O'Brien appropriately plays a cynical auctioneer ably backed by a motormouth supporting cast in this fast-moving potboiler with an extremely complicated plot delivered at breakneck speed. The young Anne Dvorak is a potentially attractive heroine, but perennial 'Other Woman' Claire Dodd by far has the showier part.

Pat O'Brien plays the character who boasts the tile slogan. He is an auctioneer. He isn't really a criminal but he's not on the up and up, either. Interestingly, he isn't in a small town at a carnival. These auctions are taking in suckers in Manhattan. He's on Second Avenue! Wow, how it has changed since those days! I like O'Brien a lot, in his comic and his serious roles. I have to say that here, though, Lee Tracy could have run circles around him. In some ways this is a post-Code, urban "Half Naked Truth." Ann Dvorak is another major favorite of mine. I would watch virtually, maybe literally, anything she's in just to see her. Here she is kind of wasted: We first see her when she'd down on her luck -- homeless and without funds. I won't give anything away but let's just say that's not totally the way her character ends up.

Claire Dodd is also good. She plays a woman from farther East -- Fifth Avenue -- who takes O'Brien down the garden path.

It's a highly entertaining movie, though not by any means a great one.

This is a movie about a shady auctioneer who is in love with his gift of gab, which our hero believes allows him to sell anything to anybody. This means much of the movie's brief running time is filled up with Pat O'Brien blabbing on, auctioneer style, about the peerless quality of his goods, the fairness of his pricing, his own inflated sense of self-regard, and (to his acolytes) the swell tricks he just pulled on some poor sap or other. If you like your petty swindlers to spew reams of bogus verbosity, this is the film for you.

Unfortunately, we're supposed to find our hero at least somewhat likable. Maybe Cagney could have pulled this off. Pat O'Brien, however, you just want to hit with an auctioneer's mallet. Ann Dvorak is given pretty good reason to revere the guy by the script, but, by the end of the film, it's hard to understand why she would not be joining the line of folks who want to murder the twit.

At least the movie makers had the wit to depict O'Brien as someone easily duped and he does not, ultimately, succeed in his big time schemes. And, like most Warners of the period, the film moves along pretty well. The problem here is the one finds with a lot of 30s Clark Gable films -- the lead character is a selfish cad in need of a sound thrashing, rather than a happy ending with the pretty female lead.