Cute Girls and Corpses

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #175

Rare book dealer Joel Sloan and his wife Garda have one last mystery to solve. And for the third time in three movies, there are different actors bringing the Sloans to life. This time around, it's Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern.

I don't have a lot to say about this one, because after two fast-paced and entertaining comedy/mysteries, Fast and Furious (1939) is a bit of a dud. 

I don't blame Tone and Southern for this. They play against each other nicely. But their dialogue fails to sparkle the way it did in the first two films. One major problem is Garda's almost obsessive jealousy. In the earlier movies, this was an occasional running gag. Here, it pretty much defines every interaction they have.

Also, the movie takes a half-hour (nearly half of its 73-minute run) to set things up and actually get to the murder. And that murder does not involve stolen or missing rare books, meaning that Joel's special skillsets are not used and he becomes a more generic amateur detective. Joel is asked to help judge a beauty contest, allowing this Busby Berkely-directed movie to fill itself up with pretty girls in bathing suits.

There's also a sequence in which several trained lions end up in the Sloans' hotel room. It's a funny scene, but seems a little too slapstick to fit into a comedy that depends on sharp dialogue for its humor.

The mystery itself (involving missing money and the murder of the guy who originally embezzled it) is pretty good and the resolution is satisfying. But we simply don't have as much fun getting there as we did in the first two movies. Though, to be fair, there is a pretty nifty scene in which the Sloans have to escape a death trap.

This wraps up our examination about how being a rare book dealer inevitably leads to investigating murders. We also finished up the Tom Corbett novels a few weeks ago. At this moment, I have no idea what the next Read/Watch 'em In Order subject will be, but I'll think of something.