Girl Missing

"Girl Missing" is a neat little B-movie which goes from being a comedy to a murder mystery about midway through the picture. It begins with Kay and June (Glenda Farrell and Mary Brian) at a hotel...and June is being pursued by a dirty old man (Guy Kibbee). While Kay and June are looking for a rich husband, this guy is just a creep who won't take no for an answer. Well, when June tells him no, he abandons them...sticking them with a hotel bill.

Now you probably will assume that the rest of the film will consists of the pair hooking husbands....and you'd be wrong! Instead, it becomes a murder mystery and the police are having a hard time putting the pieces together. So, like too many 1930s films, amateurs manage to piece it all together, as Kay and June want the reward money!

Overall, this is a fun and snappy B-movie...the type Warner Brothers did so very well during this era. The acting is very good and the writing, surprisingly, is very good as well. Well worth seeing and fun.

By the way, if you do watch note the opening titles....as they are very creatively done.

When Ben Lyon's bride is kidnapped from their Palm Beach hotel, stranded chorines Glenda Farrell and Mary Bryan find themselves mixed up as witnesses, suspects, and crime-crackers.

For a Warner Brothers quickie that clocks in at 69 minutes, this one has a surprisingly leisurely set-up, taking the first 25 minutes to paint the resort as populated by gold diggers, operators and rich marks. This is made possible by casting Miss Farrell, who could recite all of Hamlet in 27 minutes, but also the efficient story-telling at Warners in this period. It's not a topnotch script, but director Robert Florey keeps things humming along, with a few dutch angles and cheesecake shots to keep the intellectuals and lechers happy.

Kay (Glenda Farrell) and June (Mary Brian) have gotten away from the chorus line in New York and are living it up in a posh Palm Beach hotel, but the price is leading on elderly wealthy Kenneth Van Deusen (Guy Kibbee), and hoping he will just continue to be led with no sexual payoff. He gets tired of the routine and leaves the girls owing a 700 hotel bill. Their solution is to find another wealthy guy, but this time the guy (Ben Lyon as Henry Gibson) is engaged. And he is engaged to somebody they both knew in the chorus line (Peggy Shannon as Daisy), but who snubs them by saying she doesn't know them. The girls have their problems solved when an old friend (Lyle Talbot as Raymond Fox) offers not only to pay their hotel bill but pay their train fare back to New York.

When Kay and June miss their train and have to stay an extra night, they hear on the radio the next morning that newlywed Daisy is a "girl missing". Gibson, her new husband, is offering 25000 as a reward for returning her, and Kay and June decide to stick around and solve the mystery. There is a car chase along a seacoast highway, a dead body found on a bench, and a note with a dagger through it saying "you are next".

This thing is pure rat a tat action and precode one liners , largely powered by brassy Glenda Farrell who really carries the weight of the energy of this thing. Kibbee is great in his small role as the frustrated wannabe lover. Edward Ellis is memorable as the very skeptical police inspector. Watch this one if you are in the mood for some precode goodness Warner Brothers style.

This film revolves around two chorus girls named Kay (Glenda Farrell) and June (Mary Brian), who are always looking for their next sugar daddy. Just as their latest benefactor leaves them high and dry, they hear about a former coworker who is marrying a well-to-do young man. When they run into the fortunate social climber, she gives them the high hat.

What begins as a comedy turns into a mystery when the new bride disappears and a corpse is found at the honeymoon hotel. The police are stymied, but the girls---motivated by a sizeable reward offer---set off to investigate.

Though Ms. Farrell has the more assertive role, I found Mary Brian to be a delight. The cast in general is strong. The fast-moving story never flags. A sequel featuring the detective work of the two women (and others from the cast) might have been a winner.

Motor-mouthed Glenda Farrell adds sass and vinegar to this better-than-most crime programmer dating from the early sound era. She and Mary Brian play a couple of New York gold-diggers stranded in Palm Beach when frustrated sugar daddy Guy Kibbee sticks them with an unpaid hotel bill. Spurred on by the prospect of a big reward, they get mixed up in the bridal-night disappearance of yet another gold-digger (Peggy Shannon), whom they know from her days in the kick line, but who managed to snag a millionaire (Ben Lyon).

In the course of their meddling, they encounter an old pal (Lyle Talbot) who seems anxious to get them out of town; a pair of overstuffed hams posing as a society couple (Helen Ware, Ferdinand Gottschalk); and a body in the hotel gardens, still smoking a cigar. Film buffs will catch brief appearances by Walter Brennan, Louise Beavers and Dennis O'Keefe.

Without ever really losing sight of its mystery plot or lapsing into the `comic,' Girl Missing brandishes a lot of racy, pre-Code wit, dished out mainly by Farrell. Most of the credit can no doubt go to scriptwriter Jules Furthman, whose credits include Shanghai Express, Bombshell, The Big Sleep and Nightmare Alley. The rest can go to Frenchman Robert Florey, whose directorial career may not be quite so distinguished but bears watching: Cocoanuts (the first Marx Brothers movie), the first `talking' Murders in the Rue Morgue, and a few noirs like Danger Signal and The Crooked Way. Girl Missing succeeds because of good teamwork, and it had a great team.