A Very Honorable Guy

O.K., so this not the best Joe E. Brown vehicle. The script is weak and the laughs few. But it did have some amusing moments, such as the scene in Mindy's, when Robert Barrat pours just about every condiment into his coffee and Alan Dinehart looks on in disbelief. Or the tear gas scene. The capable cast tries hard but apart from a couple of funny scenes, they can do little with inferior material. Still, I thought it was kind of cute. Joe E. Brown fans should enjoy it.

This is the youngest I've seen Joe E Brown in a film. I am used to him being loud, obnoxoius and brash in later films, so it was great to see a wider range of his acting abilities. His acting even reminder me of Don Adams in Get Smart at times, with some of his mannerisms here.

I think the tone is fine in the beginning, you can do comedies with down-on-their-luck characters. It's all about how they respond and get out of their situations. What lowers my enjoyment for this movie is the second half where the whole plot turns absurd. Characters start making decisions that no sane human would make, and the tone shifts greatly from the first half where the characters were more grounded.

Also, great use of names, Feet Samuels, "the brain", etc. They were likely trying to mock gangster names but 90 years later all the names sound fun and cool to me.

This humorous tale of a sub-culture of gamblers and pickpockets centers on Feet Samuels (Joe E. Brown), whose luck hasn't been so good lately. It gets even worse when the local mob boss, "The Brain" (Alan Dinehart), wants to teach a couple of welchers a lesson via the fists of his henchmen. They use Feet to find their marks, and when the police arrive, Feet winds up in jail for hitting a policeman in the confusion. The Brain offers Feet a five hundred dollar loan to help bail him out of jail. At first Feet smartly refuses, but when it is pointed out to him that the Brain might consider it an insult, he reluctantly accepts the loan. Feet has no luck raising the money he owes the Brain, and then he gets an idea when he sees a butcher delivering a side of beef for fifty dollars. With no money, no luck, and rejected by his girl Hortense (Alice White) Feet figures he has nothing to live for anyways. He decides to sell his body to science for one thousand dollars. However, he gets no takers but one - a strange doctor who is taken with the unique shape of Feet's head. Of course the doctor has no guarantee Feet won't take the money and never return, so The Brain underwrites this strange contract in which Feet is given one month to sew up his affairs and return a corpse.

Feet then repays his debt to the Brain and takes the balance to go on one last spree before he dies. Fate can be cruel, though, and suddenly Feet's gambling begins to pay off. Pretty soon Feet has run up his 500 dollars into a small fortune. This allows him to win back Hortense and begin to make wedding plans. There's just one problem. He's been having so much fun he forgot that his month is up the next day.

Alice White and Joe E. Brown were perfect together. White did seem to do better in these brassy supporting roles than as the lead in her earlier roles of 1929-1930 back when she was First National's answer to Clara Bow. You really feel that under all of that materialism - and there's a lot of it - that Hortense really does love Feet.

For a fun-filled film made just after the production code went into effect, with plenty of snappy dialogue and loaded with unique characters and atmosphere, this one really fits the bill.

"If at first you don't succeed, suck eggs."

Joe E. Brown isn't the most magnetic guy in the world, but he has a certain flair in this film, like when he tosses his hat over his shoulder and it lands perfectly onto a hat rack. He plays a man nicknamed "Feet" who possesses a load of scruples but no money, and in a rather contrived way comes to owe a gangster ("The Brain") $500, payable in a month or else. Gotta love those names, right? He comes up with the brilliant idea of selling his body to science for $1000, then living it up until he has to kill himself to fulfill his end of the bargain. Naturally he starts getting incredibly lucky, winning all his bets (even accidental ones), winning the lottery, etc., the exact opposite of the cold streak he was on earlier. In the excitement of suddenly being obscenely wealthy, he somehow forgets (!) his promise.

This is an interesting variation on the theme of a rags to riches tale which was common during the Depression. Filmgoers could empathize with "rags" and dream of sudden "riches," when all their troubles would be gone. The film has amusing little things from 1930's, like that punchboard grid that cost a nickel to stick a pin through in the hopes of winning a $10 box of chocolate, and dialogue like one gangster exhorting another to drive faster by saying ("Travel boy, travel - we gotta lose 'em!"). Unfortunately, it's also loaded with plot holes and ridiculous character motivations. Maybe it's intention as a light comedy was to not take itself seriously, but it comes across as too silly, especially in its second half.

To be honest, I actually came for Alice White, who plays Hortense, Feet's girlfriend. I wish she had gotten more scenes, but she lights up the ones she's in. The film was released in May of 1934 and is thus pre-Code (enforcement began July 1), but you wouldn't know it. There's an allusion to breakfast after a night Hortense and another man spent together, as well as her and some other showgirls kicking their legs, but it's all pretty tame stuff. Overall, it's not a horrible way to spend 62 minutes, but just ends up being mediocre on all fronts.

Feet Samuels (Joe E. Brown) has a run of bad luck and stuck with a gambling debt to the Brain. He sees himself as a very honorable guy and never breaks a promise. He gets tricked and put in jail. The Brain pays his bail and he's further in debt. He decides to sell his body to mad scientist Dr. Snitzer who likes the shape of his head. He lives his life for one last month before leaving his body to science.

It's a ridiculous premise. Joe E. Brown is trying to make it breezy fun. It's not actually funny. The tone is light or more light than the material should allow. I am intrigued mostly wondering how this is getting resolved. It needs to end with a funny gag but it's not. Maybe that's why there is the final chicken gag. Honestly, I don't get the joke but it's the same light ridiculous non-sense that permeates this movie.