... especially with Warren William, since this really played well off of his playful slickness. Too many times after the production code came in, WB substituted unfunny inanity, fast talking, and motion for the sake of action to replace the bawdy comedy of the production code years, and their movies suffered for that.
"Odds" Owen (Warren William) is a bookie running a very large bookmaking establishment. One day some anonymous fellow comes in and places a 2500 dollar bet on a horse that never wins. The odds are 20 to 1. Numbers (William Gargan) is immediately suspicious, informs Owen, and they put a tail on the guy who made the bet. It turns out the money that made the bet is actually owned by Wall Street banker Everett Markham (Clay Clement). The horse does win. Immediately after the race an Owens associate - the woods are full of Owens associates, it's part of what makes the film - gets a sample of saliva from the horse and he turns out to have been doped. Owens presents Markham with the evidence and refuses to pay off the bet.
Owens says that the bookmaking game isn't fun anymore with fraudsters like Markham involved and decides to leave that profession and go into the insurance game since the two professions are similar, or at least operate on similar principles. So, Owens founds a company that insures the oddball kinds of things that Lloyds of London does. Meanwhile Markham has vowed revenge on Owens for exposing him as a fraud. Funny and odd complications ensue.
This follows the tried-and-true WB formula of having William be the urbane and distinguished leader of a ragtag band of Runyonesque associates trying to be on the level for a change. The unique insurance niche this group is trying to fill is an opportunity for all kinds of odd clients and situations including a champion husband caller who needs her voice insured, a man who wants to be insured against twins, and the case that is at the center of the plot - a crackpot author (Guy Kibbee) who wants to insure his actress daughter (Claire Dodd) against marriage for three years so that he has time to finish his book on how the South really won the Civil War. This is because his daughter gives him an allowance to live off of that would end if she married and left the stage.
Unlike most WB second feature comedies of the time, this does not have a wild finish, but it is satisfying. Running at just under an hour it does not outstay its welcome. If you like Warren William you'll like this one, and perhaps if WB had put Warren William in more high caliber comedies such as this he would have not wandered over to MGM in 1937.
