New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

James Rufus Wallingford, master swindler, returns to America - cheating suckers & dodging the law. But then he falls in love with the daughter of an old man he wants to defraud. He needs to watch his step, or there won't be any NEW ADVENTURES OF GET RICH QUICK WALLINGFORD.

William Haines was perfectly cast as a smooth-talking operator in this, his fastest-moving, most densely plotted film. Leila Hyams is cute as his love interest, but she doesn't have a lot to do but look pretty or distressed. Clara Blandwick, as her mother, acts like a tough old customer. Guy Kibbee is fun as the detective waiting for Wallingford to slip-up. As Haines' accomplices in crime, Ernest Torrence and pickpocket Jimmy Durante are especially good. This was Durante's film debut and he soon would be a top Hollywood star.

By the way, for many decades this movie (based on a character already established in short stories in Cosmopolitan Magazine & a couple of silent films) held the distinction as the Hollywood film with the longest title.

In this updated version of the book by George Randolph Chester, William Haines is con man extraordinaire Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, Ernest Torrence is Blackie Daw, Jimmie Durante is Schnozzle, Wallingford's inept assistant, car thief, and pickpocket. Guy Kibbee is the cop who has been trying to put Haines in prison for more than a decade, and Leila Hyams the girl Haines falls in love with.

I have a weakness for cinematic confidence tricksters, and under the direction of Sam Wood, it's a pretty good modernized version of the first three episodes of the Wallingford book. Haines is a bright, breezy, and confident trickster, able to charm candy from a baby, and Torrence keeps up the pace very nicely. The big chase sequence at the end goes on a trifle too long, but there are some lovely sequences, like the barber shop scene, where the audience sees exactly what Haines is up to and actually rooting for him to takes the rubes' money. Hale Hamilton as the surly banker, Walter Walker and Clara Blandick as Miss Hyams' parents, and the usual excellent cast of a MGM production make this a fun and funny way to spend an hour and a half. Durante sings "Did You Ever Have The Feeling That You Wanted To Go?"

... and maybe the best thing that he ever did in the sound era with the exception of perhaps "Are You Listening?". I'd say that this was his best comic performance and "Are You Listening?" had his best dramatic performance, although anything Haines did was going to have a big dose of comedy.

Wallingford (Haines), Blackie Daw (Ernest Torrance), and Schnozzle (Jimmy Durante) are partners in crime, con-artists always up to some racket. Their racket in this film was to form a clay pot company based out of the property that the parents of a girl with which he is infatuated (Leila Hyams) own. He does blasting on the property to get the interest of the locals, and by the time it is over they are practically begging him to let them invest in his new company. The plan is to get the locals to invest in stock in his bogus company and then skip town. But Wallingford's past sins are coming back to haunt him in the person of a cop who has been trailing him for years (Guy Kibbee). And also Wallingford finds himself truly falling for Hyams' character.

Louis B. Mayer really liked Durante, and he does work in this film, but he is every bit as much trouble as Gilligan was on Gilligan's Island. He is supposed to be the car thief of the bunch, but he keeps stealing various police vehicles, giving the trio the wrong kind of attention, and in general making the worst possible decisions with the best intentions.

It's interesting to see Guy Kibbee before he became a kind of perpetual Elmer Fudd character at Warner Brothers. Here he kind of reminds me of William Frawley - tough but with a heart.

There are a couple of interesting tie ins to other MGM films of that time. One is that Rochay's Beauty Parlor is clearly visible in a couple of the street scenes. That was the name of the beauty parlor in 1931's Reducing. The other is Henry Armetta playing a barber in the exact same barber shop set that was used in "The Sins of the Children" from 1930 where he also played a barber.

I'd highly recommend this to people who are fans of the precodes, although this really doesn't have a precode moment.

"New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" (1931) with William Haines, Ernest Torrence, Jimmy Durante, Leila Hyams, Robert McWade, Guy Kibbee, Hale Hamilton, Clara Blandick, Walter Walker, and many others, continues the saga of con-man extraordinaire, Wallingford, and his con-men cronies, Blackie Daw and Schnozzle, a film based on the well-known short stories, plays, and novels of George Randolph Chester which were made into silent films twice, 1916 and 1921. Haines plays Wallingford who can't do anything at all without looking for the con angle against anyone and anything for any reason on any day in any year. Blackie Daw, played by Ernest Torrence, is equally a con-man, though he doesn't think the public is as gullible as Wallingford does, though in this film up front Wallingford pretty much shows Blackie that the public in general IS as gullible as he thinks it is. Schnozzle is played by the Schnozzola himself, Durante. Hyams and her mother and father in the film, Walter Walker and Clara Blandick, are at first foils, then comrades, Hyams a lover, then in the end just...well, you watch and find out. This is Con Games Unlimited to the hilt. A fun, if not fairly mild, entertainer for 95 minutes. Any longer would have been beyond the limit. Where it stands gives it a passable 7 out of 10. I'm not a huge Haines fan, but he's good here. Torrence is always good. Durante's Durante no matter how you cook. He's rarin' to go even when well done. Guy Kibbee's quite good in this, too; not up to his usual sugar-daddy shenanigans he usually played in the 30s. This one's professionals doing what they know how to do best. Could have been a stage play. The lack of cinematic fluidity is its main fault. Otherwise, it's a watch!

William Haines was an immensely popular actor and one of the top box office draws of the late 20s and early 30s. However, despite being popular (or, perhaps because of it), MGM kept putting him in the same sorts of films again and again. If you see one or two, you'll enjoy them....see a few more and you'll tire of the same old same old plots involving a cocky but very talented man (often an athlete) who ends up changing his attitude for the better by the end of the story. But "New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" is a terrific film because it breaks with this formula and allows Haines to show off his comedic skills.

Wallingford, Schnozzle and Blackie (William Haines, Jimmy Durante and Ernest Torrence) are all crooks working together to swindle suckers...rich suckers. Again and again, the smooth and fast-talking Wallingford convinces folks to invest in his various phony schemes...all while staying a few steps ahead of McGonigal (Guy Kibbee) of the District Attorney's office.

Sadly, this is one of Haines' best films...and in only a few years he would be forced to retire from movies due to the new Production Code of 1934. To 'clean up' the film industry, gay actors like Haines were expected to go back into the closet and marry women...but he wasn't willing to live this life and chose retirement instead. I would have LOVED to see more movies like this one as it gave him a chance to be different....a bit like a Lee Tracy character.

So is it worth seeing? Absolutely! The story is entertaining and reminiscent of such movies as "The Lady Eve" or "Jimmy the Gent" or "Larceny, Inc."....and every bit as much fun. The only negative is that Wallingford's change of heart near the end seemed a bit out of the blue and hard to believe. Still, a very enjoyable picture.