Kathryn Adams is jailed for selling candy without a license. She is paroled on the grounds that she has to take care of her daughter, Baby Sandy. But Sandy is in the hands of Edward Everett Horton, Donald Woods, and Raymond Walburn, three brothers who are candy manufacturers. They hire Miss Adams to tend to Sandy.
Sigh.
There is a wealth of comic talent in this movie, including Franklin Pangborn, Jed Prouty, Hardie Albright, Mantan Moreland, and Bert Roach, most of whom are wasted because every once in a while there is the matter of the plot, which somehow involves Evelyn Ankers, to deal with, or Baby Sandy, who is the star of this movie, has to giggle and pull a lever. Baby Sandy's pictures were, apparently, successful, or perhaps they were produced so cheaply that theaters threw them on the screen as second features or even chasers. A chaser was a movie you put on the screen when you wanted the audience to leave so you could charge new people admission.
I am willing to concede that there were, and possibly still are, people who enjoy the syrupy glop that is Baby Sandy and her vehicles. But they were not that numerous or long-lasting. Time was running out on her when this was made. Despite the supporting cast, she only made two more movies. By the time she was four, she was a washed-up has-been. Only four years too late.
I am not fond of William Goldman's exhortation that no one knows anything. I believe there are people who have ideas which have some relevance to the subject of how to make a motion picture. But this movie is a powerful piece of evidence to support Goldman's statement.
