New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

"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!

In 1931 William Haines was still a top 5 box office star and it's easy to see why with this fast and funny talkie version of GET RICH QUICK WALLINGFORD, which was filmed in 1921 with Sam Hardy.

Haines is perfectly cast as the fast-talking conman who meets his match in Leila Hyams. It's love at first sight for Haines as he and his team (Jimmy Durante and Ernest Torrence) descend on a small town so he can pursue Hyams and swindle the local banker, who is trying to swindle Hyams' father.

The entire cast is quite good in this early talkie and Haines is very handsome and funny as he maneuvers his swindle and closes in on Hyams. Durante is funny is a very early film role. Torrence, a big star character actor in silent films (DESERT NIGHTS) is also excellent here. Hyams is beautiful.

Co-stars include Guy Kibbee as the cop, Clara Blandick and Walter Walker as the parents, Hale Hamilton as the banker, Rober McWade as Tuttle, Henry Armetta as the barber, Lucy Beaumont as the cleaning lady, Charles Moore as the shoeshine boy, and Edwin Maxwell as the telegram boss.

This is a rare film but worth looking for to see the great William Haines in his prime.

... 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.

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?"

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.