Fast and Loose

By VARIETY STAFF

Paramount. Director Fred Newmeyer; Screenplay Doris Anderson, Jack Kirkland, Preston Sturges; Camera William Steiner
 
Miriam Hopkins
Carole Lombard
Frank Morgan
Charles Starrett
Henry Wadsworth
Winifred Harris
 

A frothy bit of celluloid [from the play The Best People by Avery Hopwood and David Gray]. It is Miriam Hopkins' first picture. The stage artiste plays tick-tack-toe with the camera, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.

Cast principals are almost entirely from the stage, with Charles Starrett opposite Hopkins and Frank Morgan playing the financier father. Carole Lombard is the only name.

Hopkins is engaged to a theatric silly-ass and titled Englishman, while Henry Wadsworth is in love with an on-the-level chorus girl (Lombard). Hopkins seeks an out on her prospective marriage for a title and grasps her chance when accidentally meeting Charles Starrett. Later discovery that he's merely a garage mechanic enhances the romance for her, and it's a grand mixup when the entire family meets in a roadhouse raid.

The direction and the players hold the much-used script together.

(B&W) Extract of a review from 1930. Running time: 70 MIN.