I watched this thinking it might be one of those a silly, lightweight comedies from the early 30s. I did not expect anything as distasteful, dreadfully acted, poorly written, unevenly directed and so achingly unfunny when it's trying so desperately hard to be funny as this. It actually seemed promising at the beginning when shouty Robert Armstrong and Gertrude Michael (star of the equally awful MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS) meet up after release from prison but after about five minutes the wisecracks and come-backs are all exhausted. I am not surprised Ida Lupino was in disguise throughout, this would have been embarrassing had anyone back in England seen her in this. And as for the acting ability of Flash Gordon!
I also did not expect for anything counter possibly be so boring - not just boring but amazingly the boredom factor grew exponentially as it went on. I had to endure pain to force myself to get to the end just for this unique experience of ultimate tedium. It felt like the crew had all started walking off set about half way through and had just left the cameras rolling. Was this really made by Paramount, a professional film studio or has someone grafted their logo on to the start of this.
The plot has Robert Armstrong and Gertrude Michael setting up a "health" magazine essentially to turn it into a salacious type of magazine (photos of people in bathing costumes etc) and to give their rag an air of respectability they enlist a couple of high-profile athletes with high morals. The film then ping-pongs between scenes of people dressing in shower rooms and dressing rooms to scenes with the two athletes crusading against moral depravity, and pornography of the media......including films like this. It's a film which hates itself as much as the viewer does! One example of this is, depending on whether you're a teenage boy or not (or still think you are) is the best moment in the whole motion picture. Toby Wing (in a rare credited role, rather than being just an extra for a change), who was the prettiest, sweetest, cutest girl in the world (that's a fact, don't argue) is encouraged very easily by some drunk, older men at a party to strip down to her underwear and dance on a table. This clearly isn't just the best moment in this film but one of the greatest scenes in any motion picture ever, if not THE greatest. But what does the film then do - it becomes a moral crusade against any form of titillation, the two crusaders sweep in, rescue pretty miss Wing and physically throw those men out of the room for staring at the divine miss Wing....just like we've been doing. Is this film trying to make us feel guilty for actually looking at it? It has a very schizophrenic feel.
One reason films from before 1935 are fun is there's often a few scantily clad ladies. There are quite a lot of scantily clad ladies in this but (apart from Toby Wing of course) they all seem to be part of a cult as they all look identical and all in some strange uniform. Whatever the opposite of sexy is, these are that. There are probably more scantily clad men than women: bare-chested, blonde haired Aryan youth marching in their tight shorts. Eventually these hundreds of white men join up with their blonde female compatriots and parade in military formation, waving flags to military music. At least Leni Raiefenstahl was a professional film maker ! I couldn't decide whether the complete amateurishness of this or the fact that I was watching a dry run of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL was worse.
Eventually "those in control" catch up with Armstrong and Michael and their non-conformity is trampled under the iron boot of respectability. It is very possible that this is symbolic of the forthcoming implementation of Joseph Breen and the Catholic League of Decency's Motion Picture Production Code. It's also equally possible that this is just a terrible, terrible film - best just to rewind to Toby Wing dancing on the table.
I also did not expect for anything counter possibly be so boring - not just boring but amazingly the boredom factor grew exponentially as it went on. I had to endure pain to force myself to get to the end just for this unique experience of ultimate tedium. It felt like the crew had all started walking off set about half way through and had just left the cameras rolling. Was this really made by Paramount, a professional film studio or has someone grafted their logo on to the start of this.
The plot has Robert Armstrong and Gertrude Michael setting up a "health" magazine essentially to turn it into a salacious type of magazine (photos of people in bathing costumes etc) and to give their rag an air of respectability they enlist a couple of high-profile athletes with high morals. The film then ping-pongs between scenes of people dressing in shower rooms and dressing rooms to scenes with the two athletes crusading against moral depravity, and pornography of the media......including films like this. It's a film which hates itself as much as the viewer does! One example of this is, depending on whether you're a teenage boy or not (or still think you are) is the best moment in the whole motion picture. Toby Wing (in a rare credited role, rather than being just an extra for a change), who was the prettiest, sweetest, cutest girl in the world (that's a fact, don't argue) is encouraged very easily by some drunk, older men at a party to strip down to her underwear and dance on a table. This clearly isn't just the best moment in this film but one of the greatest scenes in any motion picture ever, if not THE greatest. But what does the film then do - it becomes a moral crusade against any form of titillation, the two crusaders sweep in, rescue pretty miss Wing and physically throw those men out of the room for staring at the divine miss Wing....just like we've been doing. Is this film trying to make us feel guilty for actually looking at it? It has a very schizophrenic feel.
One reason films from before 1935 are fun is there's often a few scantily clad ladies. There are quite a lot of scantily clad ladies in this but (apart from Toby Wing of course) they all seem to be part of a cult as they all look identical and all in some strange uniform. Whatever the opposite of sexy is, these are that. There are probably more scantily clad men than women: bare-chested, blonde haired Aryan youth marching in their tight shorts. Eventually these hundreds of white men join up with their blonde female compatriots and parade in military formation, waving flags to military music. At least Leni Raiefenstahl was a professional film maker ! I couldn't decide whether the complete amateurishness of this or the fact that I was watching a dry run of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL was worse.
Eventually "those in control" catch up with Armstrong and Michael and their non-conformity is trampled under the iron boot of respectability. It is very possible that this is symbolic of the forthcoming implementation of Joseph Breen and the Catholic League of Decency's Motion Picture Production Code. It's also equally possible that this is just a terrible, terrible film - best just to rewind to Toby Wing dancing on the table.