Don't Tell the Wife

Thurston Hall gets out of prison and back to selling gold mines in a boiler room. He's got a new wrinkle to avoid going to prison: he's got a mine. Is there gold in it, asks one of his crew? He has no idea.

They tap Lynne Overman for the start-up capital, but his wife, Una Merkel, wants to know who's backing the operation. One of the Wall Street Winthrops, he claims; so they track down clownish Guy Kibbee, whose name happens to be Winthrop, to serve as the nominal head of the firm.

There's a fine selection of comics in this movie directed by Christy Cabanne, including 'Big Boy' Williams, William Demarest, Lucille Ball, and Si Jenks. Cabanne has the reputation of being one of the worst directors ever to grind film, but given a decent budget, he proved that false, and here's the proof. It's very funny.

Any flick with Guy Kibbee or Thurston Hall or Guinn 'Big-Boy' Williams has got to have entertainment value. The chemistry works with "Don't Tell The Wife". A con-man tries to get out of the rackets and settle down with his wife, but the pull of the old game is too strong for him to resist. He's got to make another score for security and for old time's sake. The wife doesn't buy in quickly. Kibbee helps to convince her via his bumbling character in this flick (which probably would have been better handled by a Cecil Calloway or Frank Morgan). In times prior to this, the chiselers had sold phony stock to phony mines. This time there is a real mine, but what happens comes as quite a surprise to all concerned. Completely out of touch with reality, and only suggestive of madcap without going overboard, this one is actually kinda entertaining.

When Winthorp gets out of jail, he meets up with the gang (Big Boy Williams and William Demarest) and quickly starts planning his next caper, selling shares in a phony mine. Lynne Overman is Steven, who might also be interested, but his loud bossy wife (Una Merkel) runs the roost. and Lucy is the secretary of the phony mine company. not much of a part, really. it's all okay. kind of choppy, as they try to stay one step ahead of the law. William Demarest was always Great, and Una Merkel steals the show. Not bad, but not anyone's best work. Directed by Christy Cabanne, who had started out with D.W. Griffith, but never achieved that kind of greatness. fun to finally see this one, since they hardly ever show it. early Lucy.

This on was a lot of fun. A reformed con man (Lynne Overman as "Steve Dorsey") gets lured back into the fraud business, having to lie to his beloved wife to do so. They're selling fake stock, and they hire a patsy, "Malcom Winthrop" to front it. He has the right name to make the deal sound sweet.

Guy Kibbee is brilliant as Winthrop, but you feel bad for the character as he is made to feel important when he is really a pawn. He tries to be helpful, but everything collapses on him. Meanwhile, the racket continues with the feds closing in.

It's interesting to note that a young Lucille Ball is in this film, but she's not yet given laughs. I wondered what if Ball had played the leading lady, "Ann Dosey"? No. It's not a funny role and Una Merkel plays it perhaps better than it merits.

It's a short movie and a few pretty good laughs.

For me, Una Merkel is the high point. Demarest is good as always, Kibbee is Kibbee, and the rest of the cast do their job quite adequately.

The plot is not entirely cliched, the pacing is okay, the acting is fine, and I suspect some of the jokes would have landed in 1937, but overall ... well, it passes the time without actually being funny.

This is one of Lucille Ball's early roles, and she's good, but of course tragically underutilized.

The only objectionable thing to me is the 50mph ticket contrivance, which, besides being irritatingly stupid, is totally unnecessary. It makes me think the writers simply couldn't figure out what to do at this point and gave up trying.