Gold Dust Gertie

With a title that makes it sound as if it's set in the Yukon (it was previously called 'Red Hot Sinners'), 'Gold Dust Gertie' was originally shot as a musical but trimmed of its songs for U.S. release. As the film now stands there's at least one moment when Winifred Lightner is obviously welling up to blast out a song that doesn't come; and we instead have a very broad and physical farce played at breakneck speed and well attuned to the cynical pre-Code mood and mores of the Depression's bleakest year, 1931.

In the relatively small dose that the 65 minutes of 'Gold Dust Gertie' provides, Ms Lightner proves beguiling company as a gold-digging serial polygamist. She has a face that isn't conventionally pretty (resembling a cross between Gracie Fields & Ruth Donnelly) but is extremely expressive, has a voice and personality that would easily fill every corner of a theatre, and can carry off a scene in which she models a swimsuit in order to ensnare her next intended prey Claude Gillingwater. Lightner's earlier husbands, now being milked by her for maintenance, are played by a younger version of the vaudeville duo Ole Olsen and Chick Johnson of 'Hellzapoppin' fame, who differ physically from how modern viewers are usually accustomed to seeing them ten years later in that Olsen has a moustache and Johnson is a few pounds lighter.

(As the twin sisters to whom Olsen & Johnson's characters are now married, Vivian Oakland and Dorothy Christy make a handsome pair while also displaying the comic potential both would also demonstrate working with Laurel & Hardy in 'Scram' and 'Sons of the Desert' respectively.)

Claude Gillingwater was a bit actor who made his mark playing grouchy old guys--and he played them so well. Because he was so good at these roles, "Gold Dust Gertie" really works well.

When the film begins, you see Gertie (Winnie Lightner) marrying and subsequently divorcing a couple guys. Now, years later, these two guys (played by the popular stage comics, Olsen and Johnson) have just married sisters and are anticipating great lives working for a swim suit company. However, the old guy in charge (Gillingwater) has no idea either was previously married and they are afraid to tell him because he's such a stiff moralistic old coot. However, hiding this prior marriage is a problem since the Gertie the gold-digger comes to work for the same company...and soon she has her sights set on the boss! What's next?

For the most part, this comedy works, although there are a few lulls here and there (such as the chase scene near the end...I HATE most chase scenes) and I HATE Johnson's annoying laugh. Plus, compared to other Olsen-Johnson films (especially "Hellzapoppin"), it's awfully conventional. Still, on balance it is fun and worth your time.

I suppose some people will like this, but not me. Olsen and Johnson, we are told, are one of the Crazy Comedy teams, like the Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers and Wheeler and Woolsey. The problem is that the farce is set up so absurdly with characters that are not particularly funny and the three leads -- Olsen, Johnson and Winnie Lightner -- play their parts at the top of their lungs. Lloyd Bacon seems to be at a loss as to how to direct these three other than by drowning out the two comics with a storm at sea. Unfortunately it doesn't work and they can still be heard.

Claude Gillingwater does his best with his role as a bathing suit manufacturer who would consider a burkha too revealing. Talented and gorgeous comediennes Dorothy Christy and Vivian Oakland are wasted and for some reason, the musical score includes Cole Porter's "You've Got That Thing." A thoroughgoing dud. Keep an eye out for HELLZAPOPPIN, but skip this one.

... is what could be said of Winnie Lightner's character Gertie Dale. The film opens in the year 1927 - Gertie is the bride in a wedding ceremony. Next the title reads 1929 - Gertie is again the bride - surprisingly with the same minister. Next it's current day and Gertie's two husbands are on their honeymoon - with two new wives! Whatever is going on here? Well it turns out that Gertie's ex-husbands, George and Elmer (comedy team Olsen and Johnson), both work for swimsuit designer John Aberdeen Arnold (Claude Gillingham) who makes today's Tea Party look like a bunch of tree hugging hippies. He insists on designing women's sportswear appropriate for 1910 not 1931. He also is against divorce and insists all his employees be married- although strangely enough he isn't. Thus Elmer's and George's allegedly strictly business remarriage - although they do look like they're having fun on their joint honeymoon - and their desire to hide their previous marriages to Gertie.

Gertie invades the scene when the two stop paying alimony. They say the reason they stopped paying is that Arnold won't raise their pay enough for them to give her the money until the company can come up with a successful design, which is impossible given Arnold's old-fashioned ideas. Thus Gertie has to work on old man Arnold and change his ideas so the boys can get a raise and so she can get her alimony. Extremely zany antics ensue including a boat chase scene that defies many laws of physics. Oh, and Gertie has yet another ex-husband that pops up in the middle of the film too! People that want their characters to make sense will not like this film - it is strictly for gags, which you would figure on if you know anything about the zany antics of now largely forgotten vaudeville team Olsen and Johnson as well as Winnie Lightner. I have to admit I knew where this film was coming from and probably where it was going given the players and even I was a bit befuddled by two guys that would marry the same girl two years apart - I mean the second guy had to look at what happened to the first guy and have second thoughts about what he was getting himself into - and then remain close friends, work together, live in adjoining apartments, and even take their honeymoons together? In today's world there's a name for what's often behind this kind of male togetherness and it involves the words "latent" and "repressed".

Then there is serial monogamist Gertie. It has always been the law that the last husband usually is left "holding the bag" as far as alimony is concerned. Gertie seems to think ex-husbands are like charms on a bracelet - if she gangs enough of them together she'll have a real income stream going, and yet it is impossible to dislike this unabashed golddigger whose cleverness and over-sized personality eclipse her rather unconventional beauty.

I'd recommend it but then I like these early 30's loud and fast Warner Bros. comedies. Do notice that the movie doesn't even have its own theme song. That tune you hear played repeatedly in the film is "The Song of the Gold Diggers" from the lost 1929 film "Gold Diggers of Broadway" which also starred Winnie Lightner. Thus this whole thing was probably one last attempt to cash in on the success of that earlier film.