While many of his future films would be unintentionally funny, Vincent Price, already a veteran of the Broadway stage, would make his screen debut as the romantic lead in that popular genre of 30's comedy known as screwball. Here, he works with a master actress of the art of screwball comedy: Constance Bennett, playing a wealthy businesswoman who tangles with Price's tractor inventor, and finds herself in a battle of the sexes. Price, believing a woman would be happier as a wife than as a businesswoman, struggles to be in control in relationships after a lifetime of being controlled by women, now having a fiancée (Joy Page) who seems intent on doing just that.
Bennett and Price exchange tons of witty dialog with acerbic side comments from her aide-de-camp (the always officious Helen Broderick) and deal with interferences from outside parties until they are free to admit how they feel. Charlie Ruggles and Mischa Auer add to the already eccentric mix of characters by tossing out dialog like a stripper tosses gloves and a chef tosses salad. There certainly have been much funnier screwball comedies, particularly those which perfected that art form ("My Man Godfrey", "The Awful Truth"), but combining intelligent dialog with wit and an element of truth, this ends up an almost forgotten "sleeper" of the genre.
Bennett and Price exchange tons of witty dialog with acerbic side comments from her aide-de-camp (the always officious Helen Broderick) and deal with interferences from outside parties until they are free to admit how they feel. Charlie Ruggles and Mischa Auer add to the already eccentric mix of characters by tossing out dialog like a stripper tosses gloves and a chef tosses salad. There certainly have been much funnier screwball comedies, particularly those which perfected that art form ("My Man Godfrey", "The Awful Truth"), but combining intelligent dialog with wit and an element of truth, this ends up an almost forgotten "sleeper" of the genre.