Danger - Love at Work

Back in the 1930s, a common sort of film was the wacky family comedy. They were very popular and usually seemed to star Billie Burke or Mary Boland as the family matriarch. Such pictures as "My Man Godfrey", "You Can't Take it With You" and "Merrily We Live" are among the more famous films of the genre.

In "Danger--Love at Work", a hunt club wishes to expand but cannot until they buy some property owned by the goofball Pemberton family. While the Pembertons are not against selling the land, they are collectively like a toddler who has a severe case of ADHD as well as an addiction to meth! In other words, they are so busy off doing their own strange hobbies and talking in circles that they never seem to sit still long enough to complete the business deal. After many months trying in vain, the latest representative of the hunt club has quit and they just appointed Henry (Jack Haley) to take over the case and complete the deal. Not surprisingly, he's at wits end trying to corral these idiots into one place and to be quiet long enough to do much of anything!

To me, the screwball rich family was an overused cliche of the era. It wasn't that the films weren't enjoyable, but there is a certain sameness to them that makes them easy to avoid after you've seen a few. Plus, there is a part of most of us who would love to slap the snot out of these rich dilitantes...and that makes seeing a steady supply of the films tough going. In other words, seeing a few is fun...seeing them all is exhausting and repetitive....so choose a few of the best and ignore the rest.

So is "Danger--Love at Work" among the best of these films? No...though it is enjoyable and I cannot rate it poorly just because there's the glut of similar films. My only real complaint is that this family is more annoying than most in the genre and I found myself wanting to collectively slap them all! The film really tries too hard to make them strange...perhaps too much so....and that's why it only receives a 6 (though I was close to giving it a 7).

I turned this on by chance one day on the Turner Classic Movies channel and enjoyed it immensely. Hilarious plot, good acting, fun theme song. I have seen Ann Sothern in a few movies and in her television series from the fifties, only recently discovering her "Maisie" series of films which I also enjoy. At first I didn't put two and two together about Jack Haley being the Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), but was interested to find this out since I had also recently seen him on TCM in a lightweight but yet fun film called "Vacation In Reno" (1946). It's been said that "Danger: Love At Work" borrowed from "You Can't Take It With You" (1938). "Danger" is from 1937, so it's difficult to say which film did the borrowing! Another hilarious movie to look for in this same screwball-family genre is "Merrily We Live" (1938) starring one of my favorites, Bonita Granville.

Very gratifying to see that this very well-made film has gotten such excellent reviews on this site. Preminger himself, when interviewed, rarely tried to make a case for his films that were considered minor or unimportant, nor did he encourage looking back. Consequently, if foolishly, critics have tended to dismiss such films, and especially the few he made before "Laura." What a delight, then, to find that "Danger, Love at Work" is an especially effervescent and sophisticated screwball comedy. And it is a very legitimate example, based on the essential "crazy family" format. It completely ignores the social consciousness aspect of the classic screwball ("You Can't Take It With You" and "My Man Godfrey" are otherwise close relatives), and benefits perhaps from this narrow focus on plot and character. And what characters! Mary Boland, who can sometimes annoy, fits in here very nicely as Ann Sothern's mother; diminutive Etienne Girardot -- a fascinating and lively little actor (his nervous performance here, as in "Twentieth Century" is priceless) as her father (and has a charming counterpart -- equally diminutive -- in "Uncle Goliath," a "back-to-nature" type); brother John Carradine (as a "post-Surrealist" painter); Walter Catlett as a philatelist uncle -- all delightful. Miss Sothern herself is every bit as charming as Carole Lombard (and has a rather less annoying role than Lombard's) in "Godfrey," and, besides, has a lovely vocal duet with Jack Haley on the title song. She really can sing! And here we have Haley two years before "The Wizard of Oz" -- nicely done, though no Cary Grant of course. Edward Everett Horton is, as always, superb, though his straight-man adversarial role here doesn't point up his own best strengths. Even Benny Bartlett as an 11-year-old Princeton graduate, scores nicely. As is typical of Preminger, there is not a single bad performance ("My Man Godfrey," on the other hand, has its Gail Patrick - - ghastly). (In bit parts, we even have Franklin Pangborn and Elisha Cook, Jr.) So here we have, in this man's opinion, a screwball comedy truly worthy of entering The Canon (if such there be).

There's no doubt that this is a funny movie. It's madcap mayhem much of the time. It has a plot that ties it all together. And, it has a very good cast, all of whom do well in their parts. So, why do I give it only six stars? Well, for starters, it's very zany and funny at times – but not laughably funny most of the time. The ingredients for the screwball comedy are there in spades – the love triangle. But it isn't really a triangle because E.E. Horton's Howard Rogers "masterfully" became engaged to Ann Sothern's Toni Pemberton. She doesn't love the guy and there's no conflict between two suitors. And, there is very little comedy between the two leads – Sothern and Jack Haley's Henry MacMorrow.

What distinguishes the great screwball comedies is the interplay between the two leads. The exchanges of witty lines, the riotously funny give and take between the two, the hilarious mishaps and slapstick. There is none of that in this film. After a short encounter in their first meeting, the two leads become friends with a common pursuit. Now it's just a romance with them. The film does have many weird characters, and they have some lines that strain at humor. But mostly, they are engaged in individual eccentricities that are funny but that soon grow tiresome.

"Danger – Love at Work" has the feel of watching a variety show with one comedy skit – or attempted one – after another. The incidents and scenes are amusing, but that's it. A couple of other reviewers have noted that it would have been a better production with a top-line director of the day. That might have been so, but only with a major rewrite of the screenplay. It has to start with the screenplay, and this one doesn't have what it takes to make great comedy.

If Jack Haley and Ann Sothern had been A list players Danger - Love At Work would have attained the classic status for screwball comedy. As it is it's a great undiscovered piece of film making.

Haley is a rich junior lawyer at a prestigious white shoe law firm who hasn't exactly lived up to his potential or at least the potential his money should have brought him. After others before him failed he gets the assignment from his firm to get a family named Pemberton to sign off on the sale of a piece of property next to a country club the firm represents.

Not so easy because as was said in Arsenic And Old Lace insanity doesn't run in this family, it gallops. These people will not be distracted from their particular brand of insanity. That includes daughter Ann Sothern who was marking out the territory that Katharine Hepburn claimed later in Bringing Up Baby.

A great group of familiar character players was brought together by 20th Century Fox for roles here, Frank Capra couldn't have done better. My favorite is Maurice Cass who usually plays mild and officious doctors and professors. Here he's decided that civilization itself has been a failure and has decided to live in a cave like a caveman. He's Ann Sothern's uncle. The rest are as bad.

I mention Capra because if Capra or Leo McCarey or Gregory LaCava had directed Danger - Love At Work it would be a classic as well. But in one of his early contract assignments it was Otto Preminger, not known for directing comedy who was the man in charge. It was a B picture and Preminger got some good performances out of his cast, but he wasn't any kind of name yet.

This one is a real undiscovered comic gem, don't miss it if broadcast.