Men Are Such Fools

Leo Carrillo is an American back in Europe for a final polishing of his composing and conducting. He's very promising. When he meets singer Vivienne Osborne in Vienna, he woos her and they return to America. Miss Osborne is ambitious -- not just for her husband, but for her own career, and better-placed men. Tony breaks into a room where she and another man are having a good time, and knocks him out. To protect his wife, he accepts a term in prison for assault, without admitting his wife was there.

I spent the time wondering why Carillo had an Italian accent -- he was a member of a distinguished Californian family -- and Miss Osborne spoke good American English. Once you get past that, and a cast worth paying attention to -- Una Merkel, Joseph Cawthorne, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Paul Hurst, it became clear that most of the issues lay with director William Nigh. He had been quite a power in the 1920s, but never adjusted to sound directing, even though he continued to work until 1948. He died in 1955, aged 74.

The whole thing leads up to Carrillo actually getting that big piece of music he's been working on since the beginning of the music. Although the march composed by W. Frank Harling (who would share an Oscar for STAGECOACH -- is big and bombastic, it's good, although not really enough to spend an hour watching people be foolish without making me laugh.