There is a great "Crime Doesn't Pay" short somewhere in this overlong programmer filled with witty lines and practically every New York style character actor that Warner Brothers had under contract in 1933. For 20 minutes, this tale of the bureau simply shows (in clichéd dialog) the different style of cases that they deal in. Then top billed Bette Davis pops in for what plot the film does have involving a supposedly missing husband, romances aggressive cop Pat O'Brien, and then a predictable caper involving the murder of her former boss's brother (from Chicago) takes over.
Lewis Stone is basically playing Judge Hardy in his role as the head of the bureau, while Allen Jenkins, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh give their usual charactered performances. Ruth Donnelly as usual gets the best lines, and there is a nice pay off concerning her and one of the bureau's cases. There's funny moments of a report of a missing person (that turns out to be a pet) and a woman reporting her husband and cook missing who only wants the cook found. A longer bit concerns transfered officer Pat O'Brien searching for a missing 12 year old who is hiding from his parents so he can just be a normal kid rather than play the violin all day. Isn't this something the Bowery Boys later did? Tad Alexander (the prince from "Rasputin and the Empress") is admirable as the unfortunate kid, while Marjorie Gateson is instantly recognizable as the hoity-toity mother. Glenda Farrell is given the unpleasant character of O'Brien's ex-wife who speaks baby talk to him while demanding alimony. Her payoff scene is outrageously violent.
The film never really seems to be about the real bureau (least of all, New York City circa 1933). In the 1940's, film noir would take on cases from the bureau, most notably 1948's brilliant "The Naked City".
Lewis Stone is basically playing Judge Hardy in his role as the head of the bureau, while Allen Jenkins, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh give their usual charactered performances. Ruth Donnelly as usual gets the best lines, and there is a nice pay off concerning her and one of the bureau's cases. There's funny moments of a report of a missing person (that turns out to be a pet) and a woman reporting her husband and cook missing who only wants the cook found. A longer bit concerns transfered officer Pat O'Brien searching for a missing 12 year old who is hiding from his parents so he can just be a normal kid rather than play the violin all day. Isn't this something the Bowery Boys later did? Tad Alexander (the prince from "Rasputin and the Empress") is admirable as the unfortunate kid, while Marjorie Gateson is instantly recognizable as the hoity-toity mother. Glenda Farrell is given the unpleasant character of O'Brien's ex-wife who speaks baby talk to him while demanding alimony. Her payoff scene is outrageously violent.
The film never really seems to be about the real bureau (least of all, New York City circa 1933). In the 1940's, film noir would take on cases from the bureau, most notably 1948's brilliant "The Naked City".