You know instantly from the moment you see that WB shield and hear Leo Forbstein's jaunty music that you're going to enjoy this. It's one of those typical Warner Brothers fun, upbeat stories about "ordinary people" who first encounter misfortune then work out how to make it better. In this type of picture you're not going to get anxious or worried because you just know that everything's going to work out fine for them in the end. This was exactly what was needed to cheer up the audiences of The Great Depression and this one is still as entertaining today. There's nothing really special about this but as a cinematic equivalent to eating a box of chocolates, it's brilliant and guaranteed to keep you smiling all the way through.
Why HI NELLIE is still so watchable now is because it is made so well. One of Warner's top directors, Mervyn LeRoy could turn his hand to anything and rarely made anything you would not want to see. To those of us familiar with old Warner movies, there's a few familiar faces here including the usually sombre and serious Paul Muni who is never, ever associated with light comedy. However, if you have no idea who Paul Muni was and stumble upon this, you would simply think that he'd being doing these types of light comedy roles all his life - he is absolutely superb!
There's really nothing bad to say about this - as an example of this chewing gum for the masses type of entertainment, this is just right. The story, the script, the acting and the atmosphere are all spot on. If there were any vacancies at that newspaper office I would probably apply! Maybe Glenda Farrell should have had a meatier role (like she did in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM) since at the start of the picture she's a real go-getter reporter not afraid to get her hands dirty but towards the end, she seems to defer all the important stuff to the men - oh well, it was the thirties.
