Carol Lombard (Twentieth Century (1934), To Be or Not to Be (1942)) completism. Directed by Gregory La Cava from a script that Morrie Ryskind helped Eric Hatch adapt from the latter's novel of the same name (1935). In two sittings.
The screwy Bullock family attend an NYC society event that features a scavenger hunt. The last item they need to win the show is an "unwanted man". They discover a whole trove of them at the dump on the East River but of course the only really suitable one is William Powell. He and Lombard have a few good dialogues and she invites him to buttle. All the ladies of the house fall for him and things go as they must in Depression-era black-and-white. The final half an hour is overly heavy and serious in a similar way to It Happened One Night (1934).
I enjoyed Eugene Pallette's flat, droll and very amusing performance. Alice Brady was a bit too strident for me as the mother but she got most of the really effective screwy stuff; Lombard was too giggly little-girl space-cadet ditzy self absorption. Gail Patrick is perhaps the straightest shooter as an improbably-resistible conniving femme fatale. The vibe is pure Americana: there are no problems a man can have that cannot be fixed with a job and a woman, though some may require someone with more financial engineering nous than he has. Women do not have problems that do not involve a man, and some of these can be solved with a direct approach. Everyone has a right to do what it takes to remain in their class.
Roger Ebert: four stars in 2008 as a "great movie". Frank S. Nugent at the time. IMDB trivia suggests that things make more sense if you hear "protegé" as "gigolo".
