The greatest movie ever made..!
I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.
View MoreThe tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
View MoreThis is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
View MoreNot quite a Damon Runyon type jest, there is that element among the colorful characters. "Odds" Owen (William) morphs from ordinary bookie into insurance adventurer who'll underwrite any thing if the odds are right. So he insures Col. Youngblood for fifty-g's that his daughter (Dodd) and sole support won't marry for at least three years. Good thing Owen's got a crew of roughnecks to discourage potential suitors. Trouble is he sort of likes the fetching daughter himself.William handles the central role in a compellingly good-natured fashion. Perhaps the programmer's most engaging part is the premise. That Owen will insure most anything if the odds are favorable leads him to insure things like a father not having twins, and a weary woman having a hog-calling voice for contests. The latter is a real room wrecking hoot. I don't suppose Owens' underwriting is illegal even though standard insurers won't take up the novel risks. Still, I doubt that using thuggish "persuaders" appears in the underwriter's handbook. Overall, it's typical WB 30's fare— fast moving with colorful characters and well-upholstered women. Otherwise, it's an early Errol Flynn walk-on as a luckless suitor, but little more than an entertaining 60- minute time-passer. Still that's usually enough.
View MoreI'd like to give it more stars just because of William, but at 60 minutes or thereabouts the thin amount of footage did not warrant it. It's fast enough and the image of furiously betting and calculating clients of bookie William carry along the first part. It's the romance that slows things down. I don't mind predictability, though. Dodd is pretty enough for anyone's taste and William's dapper persona makes him and her nice looking as a couple. The most memorable scene to me, not the funniest, was the part at the end when Dodd is set to marry unloved suitor #1 rather than William. Did she compromise her self and future happiness by settling simply to have the title 'Mrs.'? It looks that way. The entire huge church attendance stares at the door where Suitor #1 ought to enter and the eager crowd's demeanor and growing look of dismay on Dodd's countenance as she faces being stood up make the scene poignant. Then William enters unexpectedly and weds his dream girl. I liked how he in the first 10 minutes completely bowed out of being a bookie and tried for a more respectable career. Naturally, he was immediately successful. All in all, any Warren William is good Warren William, and I'd not seen this picture before, so I watched it. Meh.
View MoreDon't Bet on Blondes (1935) ** (out of 4) Robert Florey (Murders in the Rue Morgue) directed this comedy about a bookie (Warren William) who decides to go straight by becoming an insurance man who sells claims to freaks. William is good as usual and there's a young Errol Flynn in his second role but director Florey does very little with the material and things get really dry before we even hit the 30-minute mark. There are very few laughs to be found and all the romantic side story are pretty boring and don't lead to any real excitement.
View Morehas bookie William going legit and becoming a high-risk insurer a la Lloyds of London. He and his gang insure all sorts of hair-brained things, such as whether a man (Hobart Cavanaugh) will have twins, whether a husband-caller (Maude Eburne) will lose her voice, etc. But William gets involved in another scheme involving the marriage of a showgirl (Claire Dodd) and the nutty book her father (Guy Kibbee) wants to write. Warners comedy has the usual snappy dialog and the underrated and sadly forgotten Warren William takes great advantage of every line. He had a wonderful, leering kind of comic delivery that made him one of a kind. Mary Treen, Vince Barnet, Herman Bing and, Erool Flynn, in his first substantial part in an American movie, help make this one fun.
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