ksf-2
My least favorite Joe Brown film. I LOVE Frank McHugh and Waldo Pidgeon, but the bad jokes, bad acting, and bad script are just all too silly. The first time I saw this, I wondered why no director was credited, and now we now why. And another thing. Why do all the women talk in that screechie high pitched voice in films from the 1930s?? Was that really the rage during the 1930s? I'm sure I sound like a grumpy old man by this point, but it really is pretty lame. Interesting piece of spinning equipment when they are giving "Rollo" the exam up on the roof. Was that some real testing equipment, or had they just come up with something silly for the film. You can tell talkies were relatively new.. they still use title cards in this one. Most of the film is like a three stooges scene. Ah well. They can't all be great. It's just "okay. There were a couple fun and funny scenes here and there, so it wasn't a total washout. just my three and a half cents.
mark.waltz
The same cast of 1929's "Top Speed" gets together for similar farcial fare in "Going Wild", a comedy about a nobody being mistaken for a famous pilot. Brown, of course, is the unfortunate nobody who must quickly train to learn how to fly. This leads to some hysterical sequences involving a murphy bed attached to a vacuum cleaner, an X-Ray machine, and a flying machine similar to the one used by Marie Dressler in 1932's "Emma". The flying sequence is similar to the boat sequence used in "Top Speed". There is one minor song between Joe E. Brown and Laura Lee which is tamer than anything they did in their previous film together. Lawrence Gray replaces Jack Whiting as the romantic lead, but Frank McHugh repeats his drunken supporting role. A few years away from stardom, Walter Pidgeon makes a memorable villain.
GManfred
There were several Joe E. Brown movies in the early 30's that weren't funny and this is one of them. He had yet to hit his stride which seems to me occurred from "Elmer The Great" (1933) onward. The screenplay and the script are at fault here and the film was badly in need of a gag writer, and someone who could create funny situations and dialogue to go along with them. Scene after scene falls flat as a pancake with unfunny sight gags and rejected Vaudeville punch lines.Wasted in this carnage is Frank McHugh who for some reason is forced to play his role in an inebriated state throughout the picture. Also left in the lurch are Ona Munson, Walter Pigeon and Fred Kelsey. I caught this one on TCM, in a rare lapse of judgment for this normally dependable station.
MartinHafer
Other than in SOME LIKE IT HOT, I have never been a huge fan of the comedies of Joe E. Brown. A few are amiable enough but none of them seem all that funny or memorable. This film manages to be a little less likable and interesting than most. Now if you ARE a rabid fan of Brown, then consider this as you read my review.Brown and his friend (who have almost no chemistry together as partners) wander into a town where everyone is expecting a famous author to arrive by train. However, the author inexplicably doesn't want all the adulation and the two guys are mistaken for the author. Why they decide to do this isn't at all clear--I guess they just read it in the script, as I could see no other reason for their going on this elaborate and later very dangerous ruse. For a while the two guys eat a lot of free meals and chase women and there seems to be no real direction for the film or laughs. However, in the end, Brown is convinced to enter an air race (even though he has no idea how to fly) and he somehow wins AND gets the girl--though NONE of this makes any sense at all and is accompanied by a lot of cheesy special effects (i.e., a rear projected screen)! The bottom line is that this is a time-passer and nothing more. If you are looking for laughs, you might find more in the average Boris Karloff film!
AD
