Advice to the Lovelorn

If you want a film with Lee Tracy rattling his mouth off at ten to the dozen for the whole duration of the picture, look no further. If on the other hand you are normal and find his screen persona annoying, thoroughly unpleasant, not remotely funny and with a grating voice which makes you feel like throwing something at him, maybe this isn't for you.

There was one good Lee Tracy film, a really good film it was too called TURN BACK THE CLOCK. It was good because Mr Tracy was not playing that usual fast-talking, wisecracking newspaper reporter he always plays. I would admit that when he needed to Lee Tracy could act ...it's just he never seemed to need to because every other movie in the 1930s had him in it doing that same cursed irritating thing, like some sort of celluloid wasp ruining your picnic. Maybe if he'd got the role in THE FRONT PAGE we wouldn't all have had to suffer experiencing his resulting compensation complex by playing his Hildy Johnson at every opportunity.

This film itself can't be that bad because despite the presence of Mr Tracy, I sat all the way through it. Its story is pretty poorly adapted to the screen, the supporting players - including Sally Blane are of the cardboard cut-out variety although Winnie The Poo is actually pretty good. The main problem is that the humour is so utterly lame, relying on Lee Tracy simply shouting a lot like an angry chihuahua.

When it get's into its last half however, producer Darry Zanuck seems to remember that he is Darry Zanuck and hurls in a big explosive dose of social commentary. For ten minutes it gets quite serious and almost moving and then, believe it or not, actually exciting. Had the rest of the film been as good as the last twenty minutes......and not had Lee Tracy in this, this might have been special.