Un pobre diablo

The story line of this forgotten little comedy is quite good - but somehow the team managed to fabricate a disappointingly mediocre film out of it. The silliness is staged too clumsy to be really funny and the dialogues are way too uninspired and too long. There are many great supporting actors like Una Merkel, Eugene Palette or Donald Meek in this, but they all have to play rather dull characters and not one of them gets the opportunity to show his or her talent. Only Charles Butterworth stands out. His outlandishness is quiet unique - he plays it so convincingly it kept fascinating me from start to finish. No laughs here, but Butterworth is worth the ticket. PS: I always thought of Raoul Walsh as a really good director, but the failure of this film goes partly on his account; he seems to be overchallenged with comedy...

Screenplay: 2 out of 5 Directing: 2 out of 5 Acting: 3 out of 5

With all the right cast members for a comedy, MGM comes through in this shortie! Gene Palette, Don Meeks, Una Merkel, Charles Butterworth, and wrestler turned movie star Nat Pendleton. We follow husband and wife team Millie and Willie (Merkel and Butterworth) as they are caught up in an adventure when Willie thinks Skinner (Meeks) has taken his money. They get in deeper and deeper when fate, the police, the mob, and the big city reporters step in and make things worse. Directed by Raoul Walsh, although this one must have seemed pretty light fare, after the heavy work he had done earlier in his career. It's a "Much ado about nothing" sort of story, with a fluffy light script, but a fun way to kill an hour. Finally, a film where they give Palette and Meeks plenty of screen time. They were frequently relegated to tiny roles.

Yes its slow at times and a little creaky but it makes up for it with sharp witty dialogue unappreciated by some because of its understated dryness. Watch it for the interplay - Butterworth is superb, Merkel is delightful, great supporting roles for Pallet, Meek, Pendleton and the rest.

One of the most Britishly dry US comedies I've seen and definitely not the usual for its period.

I would not normally think of Baby Face Harrington as a Raoul Walsh type film as Walsh directed action/adventure films with some of Hollywood's leading actors in the lead.

Star quality eschewed in this 1935 release from MGM's B picture unit. A whole flock of familiar character players populate the cast of this one led by Charles Butterworth who plays his usual droll milquetoast character.

Through an innocent mistake Butterworth takes money from skinflint Donald Meek and his wife's uncle Eugene Pallette who is the Chief of Police has to arrest him. When one of the notorious Nat Pendleton's gang, Stanley Fields is arrested Fields breaks jail and Butterworth goes with him and now folks think maybe this mild mannered clerk might be a criminal mastermind.

Butterworth's wife Una Merkel stands by her man. But that doesn't stop the Snidely Whiplash type villain Harvey Stephens moving in.

All those people in this cast makes this almost required viewing. You will not be disappointed.

Baby Face Harrington (1935)

** (out of 4)

Raoul Walsh directed this comedy about a dorky bookkeeper (Charles Butterworth) who gets mistaken for a dangerous gangster. Una Merkel, Eugene Palette and Donald Meek co-star in this comedy, which only runs 65-minutes yet it takes at least a half an hour to get warned up but by then it's a little too late. The first half has all sorts of stupid jokes, which aren't funny but there are also long scenes where no laughs are even gone after. Once the mistaken identity happens then things pick up with Butterworth being charming in his role. It's rather strange that Walsh would take over the gangster genre from D.W. Griffith with the landmark Regeneration and then make one of the all time great gangster films in White Heat but have this stuck in the middle.