Croisons le fer

Wrestling manager Jack Oakie teams up with world-famous tenor John Boles, who apparently needs a personal trainer. Oakie takes Boles to Budapest to get away from it all, where Boles immediately falls for singer Ida Lupino, whose cabaret act features songs and a dummy.

The Boles-Lupino romance is fairly straightforward but Oakie's comedy tends toward Ritz Brothers-style goofiness, and the picture does seem to have trouble making up its mind whether to be cute or merely obnoxious....

Margot Grahame has a fun role as a gold digger who dumps Boles in a fit and marries dim-but-brawny wrestler Gordon Jones in a hurry.

Erik Rhodes is hilarious as Spadissimo, Lupino's continental would-be lover who may or may not want to kill Boles in a duel but really wants people to know what a dashing rogue he is: "I will show you that I come from a family of fighting fools! Of which I am the biggest!"

Lots of laughs and silly characters, even if it does come across as rather disjointed instead of supremely wild and crazy.

Ida Lupino was only about 19 for this one.... wow, she had done so much already. and had already been appearing in films for six years. started young! Stars jack Oakie and John Boles. also Erik Rhodes and Billy Gilbert in early supporting roles. so... we spend the first seventeen minutes showing that Ham Hamilton (Oakie) is a wrestling coach...then we finally get to the story, where he helps a singer (Boles) with his love life troubles. fluffy, soapy plot. Ventriloquist and dummy (Lupino) ... kind of silly, but oh, well. Erik Rhodes with his silly fake, foreign accent. liberal use of fake backdrops. dressing in drag. directed by Ben Stoloff; started in silents, moved right into talkies, and continued into the 1930s and 1940s. this one is a shortie from RKO. silly, but it's okay.

Jack Oakie has the main role. He's excellent in an atypical role in "Thieves' Highway." Here he is pure corn pone.

This movie has the logic of an early Eddie Cantor movie -- and none of the charm. Oakie begins as the manager of a boxer. The boxer is played by a very handsome actor, who shows off his body quite a bit. Then there's this opera singer, see ... He has a blonde girlfriend. She is played amusingly by Margot Graham.

Oakie seems to be managing the opera singer -- who sings no opera. He tosses off a schmaltzy song but opera? None.

I watched it because Ida Lupino is in it. She does what she can. She looks very pretty and she is appealing.

It's not the worst movie that great lady ever appeared in. That would be "The Lady and the Mob." But it is at best routine and really sub-par.

Wrestler Mike Scanlon's manager Honest 'Ham' Hamilton (Jack Oakie) had to 'borrow' the coat from singer Robert Densmore (John Boles) to sneak away from some angry bookies. Mike screwed up Ham's plan by winning. Densmore's gold-digging girlfriend Marcia Trent (Margot Grahame) starts cheating on him with Mike. Ham finds out and sees an opportunity to drive her out by telling her that Densmore is broke. She leaves Densmore. In Budapest, he meets nightclub singer Marietta (Ida Lupino).

Jack Oakie is mildly amusing. He has his moments as a trickster and a devil may care character. I don't really care about the romantic entanglement of the other characters. I don't know John Boles. He seems to be a fine actor but I'm not drawn to him. That detracts from the romance. There is a teenage Ida Lupino if one is star hunting. This is the mildest of amusement. It's a borderline case.

Consistent throughout. Long-tailed gags, mugging by Oakie, actual acting by the young Ida Lupino, a funny villainess in Margot Graham, the inimitable Billy Gilbert, solid support from Paul Guilfoyle all add up to a nice little meringue if you are so inclined. John Boles sings "Blame it on the Danube" with Frank Loesser lyrics, "feeling okay from too much Tokay." The setting is Budapest so there are several goulash jokes. Erik Rhodes is quite funny as a champion dueler with "a sort of mother complex." Lupino plays his little sister who has a ventriloquist act with the blandest dummy ever who sings. Nothing makes particular sense. Nor should it.