Lady on a Train (1945)

Lady on a Train (1945) is the first in our Deanna Durbin Christmas movie twin-pack (come back next week), but though it has a noir title and features a murder mystery, it is decidedly not a noir movie, unlike Christmas Holiday of the previous year, which did not have a noir title but was noir as heck.

Got it?

Just to throw us another curveball, Deanna’s a blonde in this one.  How do they expect us to keep up?

This post is part of the countdown to Christmas coinciding with the launch of my newest book, Christmas in Classic Films.

Keeping up with Miss Durbin is a challenge for everyone in this movie, as she breezes through the screwball scenarios like the madcap heiress she is, and has a bit of comic relief to help her: the wonderfully befuddled Edward Everett Horton as the head of her father’s New York business office, “Haskell of the New York Office” as he proudly identifies himself. When Deanna arrives from California to spend Christmas with her aunt, whom we never see, Mr. Horton is charged with taking charge of her.  Fat chance.

The action charges off the blocks from the beginning: on a train pulling into Grand Central, Miss Durbin glances up from the mystery novel she is reading to see a murder committed in the window of one of the brick buildings that border the railroad line into the city.  When our old pal William Frawley, who plays the desk sergeant, gingerly decorating a tiny Christmas tree at the local station house, refuses to believe her, she tries to enlist the help of the writer of the mystery story she had been reading.  He is played by David Bruce, who had a minor role in Christmas Holiday.

Mr. Bruce is a little wacky himself, a self-absorbed, constantly distracted writer with a glib and perennially unimpressed secretary played by Jacqueline deWitt, and a jealous society dame fiancée played by Patricia Morison.

Following him to a newsreel theater (yes, there were such things), the pesky Miss Durbin suddenly discovers the identity of the man who was murdered—a wealthy scion who lived in seclusion on Long Island and is reported to have died by falling off a stepladder while decorating his Christmas tree.  (I know this isn’t a noir, but have you ever heard of anything so un-Christmas-y?)  Deanna knows this isn’t so; his body must have been dragged back to his mansion.  She is more determined than ever to follow the mystery, whether she gets anyone to help her or not.

Playing Nancy Drew, she sneaks out to the mansion, arriving in time for the reading of the will.  Elizabeth Patterson is the old auntie, the disapproving and controlling family matriarch. The family mistakes Deanna for a nightclub singer whom the rascally old man was dating, and are worried she’s there for her piece of the pie.  All are surprised that the nightclub singer has inherited everything.

Wonderfully goofy/smarmy Dan Duryea is one nephew and stalwart Ralph Bellamy is his brother.  There is sneaking around the house to explore for clues, a clever sight gag where she pretends to be a covered-up chair to escape groundskeeper Allen Jenkins, who is truly sinister in this movie.  She finds the old man’s slippers with blood on them, knowing he was killed wearing them.  A clue!  Proof she can show to the police!  She steals the slippers, but sinister George Coulouris, a nightclub owner who has caught on to her, sends Mr. Jenkins after her to get back those slippers.  Mr. Coulouris constantly carries around a limp white cat which he continually pets.  It doesn’t seem like an affectionate act; more like a nervous habit.

Wait a minute, time for a spot of Christmas.  There is a large tree in Miss Durbin’s hotel suite (a tree in everyone’s suite, apartment, mansion, office, etc.), and she sings “Silent Night” over the telephone to her father in California, a leisurely loving version while she is lying on her bed.  In the other room, Allen Jenkins is waiting to kill her for the slippers.

The movie is really a lot of fun, and it is stunning that the fast-paced screwball aspect of the plot is balanced by a very suspenseful mystery.  Danger lurks at every turn, and the tension ratchets up in odd moments.  We get a big laugh at a clever line, and then a bit of a fright.

Deanna gets trapped into pretending she’s actually the nightclub singer she said she was at the theme nightclub “The Circus.”  There is a clever bit with a two-way mirror which Durbin will later have to smash to escape.  Caught into performing when Dan Duryea shows up, along with the rest of his dour family, as well as the hapless befuddled writer and his snooty fiancée, Durbin sings, “Give Me a Little Kiss” in a low, sultry manner.  She teases and flirts with male customers, including the writer, boldly infuriating Patricia Morison.  Deanna almost accidently starts to fall for the writer, and he is stunned to find himself captivated by her. David Bruce is very likeable in the role and after a while, becomes her partner and protector in the search for the murderer, and he actually seems to be a pretty good detective, for a mystery writer.  He certainly gets beat up enough to be a real detective.

On Christmas Eve, among the nightclub hijinks there is a keepaway game with the slippers and the fast-moving plot stops long enough again for Deanna to sing “Night and Day,” this time in her upper register, unleashing a bit of her operatic chops.  Beautiful camera work lovingly follows her, and when she locks eyes with David Bruce, we know she is seducing him.  It’s not teasing now, she really wants this man.

Because her singing in this movie is at realistic moments, i.e., in a nightclub or to her father as a Christmas greeting over the phone, the film doesn’t have that launching-into-song-for-no-reason feeling of a musical.

We end up in the writer’s apartment, where Deanna is hiding out from the bad guys chasing her.  She is in his bed wearing his jammies, while he’s on the couch.  When Miss Durbin wakes, she fondly gazes at the snoring Mr. Bruce and asks his secretary, “Does he always snore like that?”

The secretary, deadpan, responds, “I am his secretary.” 

The ever-capable secretary serenely and with no end of humor attempts to cover for them when Haskell of the New York Office shows up.  She puts his robe over her clothes and says “Good morning, darling.”

That secretary’s a good egg.

It’s Christmas Day and after another melee, they end up in jail, but Dan Duryea bails her out.  Hmm, not sure that’s a good idea.  Is she safe with him?  Mr. Bellamy comes to bail her out, too. She sees a newsboy with the headlines showing the real nightclub singer was murdered.

Somebody in the old man’s family doesn’t want to share the inheritance. 

Duryea takes Durbin to the company warehouse—where the old man was murdered.  It occurs to her that he killed him.  Luckily, Ralph Bellamy shows up and they fight. Very cleverly, we are taken into the room where the murder was committed, the suspense builds and the screwball comedy is frittered away like a dying laugh.   A light shines from a suddenly passing train.

Deanna is in danger.  One of the brothers is the murderer, and she is trapped.  David Bruce finally shows up, almost bungles things, but luckily, has brought the police with him.

Cut to another train compartment, with Deanna reading another beloved mystery book, but this time, the writer is sitting across from her, in his jammies, wishing she would finish.  The soundtrack bleeding away from the rhythmic thunder of train wheels to a few cords of “The Wedding March” tells us they are married and on their honeymoon.  Impatient, he blurts out the name of the murderer to her, spoiling the story.  Her annoyance fades as the penny drops, and she rings for the porter to make up their berth.

Lady on a Train is not the acting challenge for Deanna Durbin that Christmas Holiday was the year before (which we're going to have a look at next week), but she gets to show that she was brilliant in comedy.  She clearly had a sense of the absurd. A strikingly beautiful young woman, with certainly a lovely singing voice, Durbin could have rested on those laurels alone, but fortunately for us, she, or someone at the studio, was willing to attempt more.

Christmastime was the setting of the story, but Christmas was not necessary to the telling of the story, which in turn, had no message of yuletide sentiment.  It was released in August 1945, so even cashing in as a Christmastime movie was not the point.  Beyond just about every room having a tree, we might not even remember it is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Deanna Durbin doesn’t seem to recall it either; Haskell of the New York Office does her shopping for her.

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Come back next week for another tale with Deanna Durbin in Christmas Holiday (1944)!  It's a film noir Christmas.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Answers to More Typists

Some great guesses for these movie typists.  The answers are:

1.  Allen Jenkins ponders his next sentence as Errol Flynn's secretary/chauffeur in "Footsteps in the Dark".

2. Burt Lancaster in "Mister 880".

3. Bing Crosby in "Here Comes the Groom".

4. Jean Arthur in "A Foreign Affair".

5.  Kim Novak in "Middle of the Night."

6.  Jean Arthur, again, in "More Than a Secretary" - Jean seems to be giving Barbara Stanwyck a run for her money as Hollywood's most prolific typist.

7.  Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman in "Here Comes the Groom" about to tap out a chorus on the typewriter.

Thanks for playing along.  No post this Thursday, but I'll see you next Monday

Dive Bomber - 1941

Dive Bomber (1941) is a pretty, pretty movie.

The dainty mix of its color schemes and the rather feminine sensibility of its Technicolor palette is a strange but pleasing contrast to the macho world of naval pilots putting themselves in great danger.

So, too, is the interesting, although I’m sure coincidental use, of cigarette smoking as a male bonding ritual. Usually in classic films we’ve come to view the sharing of cigarettes, the dramatic pause in the middle of dialogue to light up, the smoke that curls from one’s lips and over the shoulders of one’s partner as a kind of foreplay between a romantic couple. Here, it’s all part of being one of the guys. It shows comradeship, good will, a "safe" way to demonstrate (or mask) deeper emotions.  Ultimately, a cigarette case, as trophy and mark of identity becomes heartfelt tribute.

And this is such a pretty, pretty movie.

It's also going to be a long post.  Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times.

This is a buddy picture, but the pairing of buddies changes like partners in a square dance throughout the film. First we have Fred MacMurray, Louis Jean Heydt, and Regis Toomey as three veteran naval fliers who are so skilled that the Navy sometimes sends them on promotional tours such as at the famous Akron air speed races.  They are known as the three top hats. At the very beginning of the movie we start our male bonding with cigarettes as the three of them take out their smokes from identical gold cigarette cases with a graphic of a black top hat on them. They are stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii and their training squadron has black top hats painted on the fuselage of their airplanes.

According to the AFI website the movie was filmed between March and May of 1941. The United States would not enter World War II until the end of that year, but the war was already a year and a half old. There are only a couple of small references to the war raging in the rest of the world, but there is still that underlying tension to the shenanigans of the peacetime pilots with their devil-may-care attitude towards war and women and the dangers of flying.

Of course, all this is more deeply sensed today than it was by audiences in 1941. Many Americans back then felt it was likely we would go to war, but did not know when. We know now what, when, where, and how awful it was, and that it began for us only three months after this movie premiered in August 1941.

Much like our look here in this previous post at Navy Blues (1941), which shows an even more lighthearted frolicking among gunnery trainees, yet there is still a sense of foreboding for us.

Part of what gives Dive Bomber an edge over other films of this sort, is the very realistic and at times quite magnificent aerial photography shot in cooperation with the U.S. Navy. The actual ships we see are the USS Enterprise and the USS Saratoga. These were two of only three aircraft carriers that survived the war. The Enterprise would be the highest decorated U.S. ship in WWII, earning 20 battle stars. It was steaming from Midway to Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked.

We see shots of Honolulu and of the naval air base at San Diego. There is official footage, all in color, of planes landing on the aircraft carrier deck and the deck crew guiding them in. Some of this provides background in later rear-screen projection shots.

The film begins with a military review, planes flying in formation with Busby Berkeley-like precision. This film was directed by Michael Curtiz. It is shot beautifully. The flying sequences are leisurely and long, nothing is rushed. Perhaps the omnipresent drone of the plane engines might irritate you after awhile, but it’s a visually pleasing film. Planes with bright yellow wings and shiny fuselages, and many of them actually biplanes. They look like those model airplanes you might remember from childhood from Revell kits. They look so much like shiny toys.  (Do kids still make plastic model kits, or was that a Boomer thing?)

Airplanes with yellow wings, floating in an azure sky, the rich chocolate brown bomber jackets, and the myriad of Easter egg pastels that will parade later on in civilian dress…one pretty movie.

In this opening flyover, Louis Jean Heydt’s plane crashes. First on the ground to come to his aid is Navy doctor Errol Flynn, who may be the prettiest thing in this movie. Unlike some of his other swashbuckling roles, where not only is Flynn’s physical prowess displayed but he gets to exhibit a dashing and extroverted personality, here he is an earnest and humble man, passionate only about research into the problem of high altitude sickness and pilots’ blackouts. He takes the brunt of criticism from the men in the ranks, and his superiors in the lab, and we might feel sorry for him for most of the movie.

Flynn muses to his assistant, and everybody’s habitual sidekick, Allen Jenkins, “We represent the uncertainty of life for those pilots. No wonder they don’t love us.”

When he reaches Mr. Heydt, he gets him into an ambulance and, like a good doctor, offers him a cigarette. When Heydt dies on the operating table Mr. MacMurray and Mr. Toomey blame Errol, and they spend the rest of the movie insulting him.

They are all transferred to the naval air base in San Diego, where Toomey and MacMurray are assigned the job of teaching Flynn to fly. More harassment. Add to this Ralph Bellamy, who plays a curmudgeonly research physician. Flynn becomes his assistant and receives his sarcasm, which he returns in kind.

They train in pretty yellow biplanes, the engines of which have to be hand cranked. Hard to believe we’re going to go up against Messerschmitts and Japanese “zeros” pretty soon isn’t it?

Ralph Bellamy is especially good in his role. A commanding presence, he seems genuine and mature where some of the other men in their roles merely seem cocksure. Eventually Flynn and Bellamy become allies and we know this because they share a cigarette together. One offers a match, the other cups his hands around the other’s hand to receive the flame.

Some of the other pilot trainees and grounds crewmen you may spot in this movie, although I admit I didn’t, are DeWolf Hopper, and Alan Hale, Jr. - the future skipper on Gilligan’s Island, and Creighton Hale.  Herbert Anderson has a few lines, he later went on to a featured role opposite the wonderful Ann Sheridan in the above-mentioned Navy Blues.

Charles B. Smith who we might remember from The Shop Around the Corner (1940) in this previous post here plays a bellboy.

Another young man who had made a handful of B movies would be enjoying a small role in this film, his first major movie, was Craig Stevens. Look at this shot of him. Isn’t he pretty?

When he first arrives as a civilian, he and Errol Flynn have a minor fender-bender car accident that evolves into a fistfight. Later on in the film Stevens becomes one of the handful of guinea pigs for the experiments conducted by Ralph Bellamy and Mr. Flynn. Apparently, according to IMDb, so did Gig Young, but I missed him.

Likewise another newcomer to the Warner Brothers studio, who had made a handful of walk-ons in B movies, would be enjoying her first featured role in a major movie was Alexis Smith. Miss Smith and Mr. Stevens had no scenes together in this movie -- the movie was actually completely filmed when the producers decided they needed a girl. Her scenes were added afterwards.  They also each appeared in bit parts in Affectionately Yours early that year.  Dive Bomber was huge leap up to the big leagues for Smith and Stevens.  After this movie was shot, they were paired in another B movie (back to the minors) called Steel Against the Sky (1941) with Lloyd Nolan, but this time in starring roles and playing characters who fell in love.  Third time's the charm, so to speak. They became engaged a year later, and were married from 1944 until her death in 1993.

One might add that Alexis Smith is also, like the yellow airplanes, and the bomber jackets, and Errol Flynn, and Craig Stevens, very pretty. I was struck by these Technicolor shots of her in her suit and hat at a house party, because they look very much like some old Kodachrome slides a shutterbug uncle of mine took during the war. We sometimes muse on the outrageous outfits of actresses in classic films, but here she looks very much like several of my female relatives of that era.  She could be my mother. (I really like the house party scene.  It's quite brief, not necessary to the plot, but there's something so in-the-moment about it, so 1941.  There is a sense of well, here we all are, but where are we going now?)

In this shot, her first close-up in the big leagues, she is immediately thrust into the role of the sophisticate, a part she would play for the rest of her life.  In reality, she is just a girl of 19. That jug-eared bellboy is older than she is.

It was also her first romantic pairing of four with Errol Flynn, some twelve years her senior. She caused a minor stir in the press for refusing to kiss Errol in this movie.  The story made the rounds, but here it is from The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington) , April 25, 1942:

"...she was supposed to jump up from a table, rush forward joyously and buss Mr. Flynn's astonished mouth.

"'That won't do at all.' she told the director, 'It's not in character.'  And she argued so convincingly, the scene was cut."  This from a girl who refused to start her contract at Warners until she completed her last college course.  And would not allow the studio to change her unusual first name and all-too-common last name.  This girl was trouble in an upsweep hairdo.

Here’s that previous post on the tall girl.  Again.

Another character actor fun to see is Robert Armstrong. You will remember him from these previous posts of The Most Dangerous Game (1932), and King Kong (1933). The rascal of the 1930s here is the more knowing and somewhat more tired middle-aged man. He plays an engineer whose job is to help redesign and refit aircraft to match the specifications that are the result of Ralph Bellamy’s research. Robert Armstrong and Ralph Bellamy may not be terribly pretty like just about everybody else, but it’s great to see him.

I have to mention when all the pilots graduate in a ceremony at San Diego, I wondered why the band played “Semper Paratus,” which is the Coast Guard march, not the Navy’s?

Eventually Fred MacMurray and Regis Toomey help out in the experiments to solve the problem of blackouts, partly as a tribute to their deceased friend. A crisis arises when Regis Toomey is found to have pilot fatigue. Ralph Bellamy and Errol Flynn ground him. Toomey is not happy about this, and quits the Navy. He joins the Royal Air Force, and while there are small references to the big job going on in Europe, the main reason for his joining the RAF is for the money. He cannot afford to be grounded, and there’s a great deal to be made in ferrying planes across the Atlantic from Canada to Great Britain.

Toomey visits the men, landing in San Diego in a British fighter plane. (I wonder how likely this is?) The other men tease and congratulate him over his new blue uniform, with his rakish overseas cap (I believe the Brits and Canadians called it a "wedge cap"), and silk scarf tied in a dashing Ascot.  Someone calls to him “Aren’t you pretty?”

He is. He is very pretty. But, he’s still got pilot fatigue even though he’s trying to hide it, and when he leaves to fly his British plane to Canada, he crashes. MacMurray, in a moving scene - he looks as though he has been crying - volunteers as a guinea pig for Bellamy’s tests. We get to watch what seem to be very primitive experiments, but no less frightening because of their apparent technological crudeness.

The men are put in a chamber that will replicate the low pressure of high altitude and the lack of oxygen. Errol Flynn listens to their heartbeats. Craig Stevens, suffering oxygen deprivation, actually looks as if his skin turns slightly bluish. It is an amazing color in this Technicolor film, though I must say it is not pretty.

Some electronic gadget with a neon blinking sign that looks like it belongs in Frankenstein’s lab illustrates their irregular heartbeats. There is no EKG. They all receive X-rays of their knees and elbows to look for gas bubbles in the joints, open X-rays with no protection against radiation to anyone around them.

They still haven’t found the problem of how to fly very high and not suffer illness. The men and the doctors are severely stressed.

To break up the leaden atmosphere -- and the conflict in the script which by nature does not involve a lot of physical action, even if it does involve physical daring do -- we have a few comedy relief moments to lighten up the plot. Allen Jenkins’ wife, played by Dennie Moore, keeps showing up for her allotment checks and he keeps trying to avoid her, aided by double-talking Cliff Nazarro. MacMurray and Flynn take some time to socialize, and we see that in these pre-war days servicemen are allowed to wear civilian clothing off base.

Though many civilians at this time might have privately felt or wondered if time was running out for them, peacetime that is, still this scene seems to illustrate that the spring of 1941 was a leisurely respite, a calm before the storm. Yellow flowers, a pink dress. A nightclub with mauve walls, and the girl singer Jane Randolph singing the new hit, “What’s New,” a lazy, romantic song of wistful parting that somehow does not foreshadow all the partings that would come in the months ahead.

Look at the outfits of the ladies, muted peach and blues, the turquoise, lime green, cream-colored shirts.  You could show this as an Easter movie if there weren't so many gol-darned plane crashes.  Pretty.

MacMurray and Flynn ignore their dates Alexis Smith and Ann Doran. They are instead preoccupied with a new idea for a pressurized suit to wear in an airplane, something like what a deep-sea diver would wear. They draw plans on the tablecloth. They smoke.

In a way it reminds me of the movie Apollo 13 (1995) where the crisis of the space capsule being unable to return to earth must be solved by the men on the ground with very rudimentary methods. All solutions begin in the human mind.

And by drawing on the tablecloth. And playing with Alexis’ lipstick.

Errol and Fred are really excited about the lipstick screw function. More male bonding. Not usually done over lipstick, but I like to think I’m open-minded.

The lipstick is a very pretty shade of red.

Both Flynn and MacMurray take to the air in some very scary dive sequences. Fred MacMurray eventually succumbs to pilot fatigue and he is grounded. He is consoled in what is one of the few foreshadowing moments of our involvement in the war, “Kind of tough to be yanked out of a ring when the main event may be about to start.”

But, one more test must be performed before their invention can be approved. MacMurray takes it on himself to fly the test.

MacMurray performs his test successfully, but crash lands and is killed. (Yeah, spoiler-schmoiler.) In the final scene we see Errol Flynn flying off to join a squadron with the Pacific Fleet. We know he is going to Pearl Harbor, and we know what will happen there. It is with poignancy and sadness that we realize he does not.

In tribute to his pal, he drops MacMurray’s gold cigarette case, which he retrieved from the crash, into the ocean, tossing it out of the cockpit of his airplane.

The last shot of the squadron flying towards the rays of the sun is brilliant enough to make you want to shield your own eyes.

Who says macho can’t be pretty?

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.

Footsteps in the Dark - 1941

“Footsteps in the Dark” (1941) displays Errol Flynn’s ease and confidence in a comic role, and provides another showcase for his unique and unabashed charm. He carries the film, and is in practically every scene, which is good and bad. He is far and away never boring and delightful to watch; however, he’s got a great cast of character actors in supporting roles that don’t get to do too much.

Mr. Flynn plays a society blue-blood, an investment broker who lives with his lovely wife, Brenda Marshall, and his patrician mother-in-law, Lucile Watson. His relationship with both is good, and it’s particularly funny to watch him flatter his mother-in-law with comments that her new hairdo makes her look like a girl, practically every time he sees her. He does not seem insincere, just like a man who has the gift of making people happy, especially when their being happy makes things run smoother for him.

Except for the police inspector Alan Hale, and his sidekick detective, William Frawley. Unknown to his family, Flynn leads a double life. He writes murder mysteries on the side, and his latest is called “Footsteps in the Dark”, where we get the title of the film. In his book, he lambastes the very society set his mother-in-law so proudly represents, and so to keep peace in his home, he writes under a pseudonym.

He hangs out with the police to get story ideas and to help them solve their cases, because he is, of course, smarter than everybody. Especially William Frawley, who is the stupidest police detective in the universe.

Mr. Flynn’s closest relationship appears to be with Allen Jenkins, his chauffeur who also lives a double life as Flynn’s secretary. I love the scenes when Flynn leaves his brokerage office for lunch and heads out with Jenkins to a cozy suburban house he keeps for his writing space.

They peel off their suit coats, and Flynn dictates his story into a Dictaphone (have a look here at our previous post on movie Dictaphones and tape recorders), while Mr. Jenkins types out the manuscript. We see Jenkins with transcription earphones, but I can’t tell if there is also a foot pedal. I’d love to know more about the mechanical devices and method of transcription in the 1940s if anybody has any information.

I’ll leave the plot alone so as not to ruin the story, but Flynn encounters shapely but not overly talented burlesque queen Blondie White, played with trampy gusto by Lee Patrick (for whom he poses as a naïve, “aww-shucks, Ma’am” Texas oilman. Catch his funny attempt at an accent.)

Grant Mitchell plays the family attorney, about whom Flynn makes up outrageous stories of being romantically involved with the burlesque queen in order to cover up his own activities.

Roscoe Karns is a smarmy private detective Brenda Marshall hires to track her husband.

Ralph Bellamy, always reliable and believable in any situation, is a dentist, and there is one particular scene with he and Flynn, with Flynn in the dentist’s chair, that flits alternately between both comedy and tension. It’s almost hard to concentrate on the nuances of the scene, at least for us today, because at one point Bellamy joins his patient in a cigarette break, and companionably plunks an ashtray down on the instrument tray for them to use. Yuck.

We want to see more of these great character actors, but the movie is Flynn’s, and so we see them only through his brief interaction with each one of them in turn through the course of the movie. They really are wasted.

Another good scene: Brenda Marshall, having discovered Flynn’s preoccupation with Blondie White, goes to the burlesque theater herself to see what’s so special about her. We later find Miss Marshall play-acting a strip tease in front of her bedroom mirror to practice for her husband, when she is interrupted by the butler. It’s one of the few scenes without Flynn; the rest of the movie rests on his capable shoulders. However, because he is so capable and so charming, we know he’ll win the day and there is no real suspense, except for a scene at the very end.

The studio could have taken this further and made sequels, but this lightweight, breezy whodunit stands on its own.