Moustache, anyone? Wacky heiresses were everywhere in the 1930s (on film, anyway), but not so many wacky (or non-wacky) heiresses with moustaches. I'm not saying that Ann Sheridan has a moustache, because she doesn't; Billy does. That's right, everyone, along with many other celluloid cads of the era, our Mr. Hopper's Jack Wentworth Pierson stylishly covered part of his upper lip with manfur. Maybe the make-up people thought it made him look more rogueish or something. Throughout the beginning of the film Jack is frequently denounced as a no-good society slob, though evidence of this is sorely lacking. He gets drunk once (off camera), but after the debacle he endured the night before (which included getting chucked down the stairs by a man smaller than him), seeking relief in drink seems a fairly natural thing to do. Not healthful, maybe, but fairly natural.

...I'm sorry. I just can't get into the moustache. It throws his features out of balance. William Powell can do it (in fact I think he must!), but Billy is best fur-free and boyish.

Anyway, back to the film proper! The alarmingly handsome Craig Reynolds plays rather a twisted hobo who, by accident, enters the lives of Kay Allyn (Sheridan) and her father, and is soon to exert unimagined influence on Allyn's marital status, her Dad's career, and the hearts of many a debutante (including the gorgeous Anne Nagel, playing Billy's sister Linda Pierson). Not a bad movie, but a bit weird in an unsettling sort of way. It is more than worth watching, however, if only to hear Billy say, "I'd like to choke that hobo!"

P.S. He looks cute in anything, even a moustache.



CAPTURES TO COME