SimonJack The plot for "His Private Secretary" is a good one. It's a variation on a common theme for later films about a rich father who rues that he has a son who has been spoiled. Only, the screenplay for this film is not very good. It has holes in places and isn't tightly put together. The quality overall is crude and rough.The film was made by Mascot, one of the Tin Pan Alley studios of the time. It's an early John Wayne film – one of the first in which he is credited and has a lead. Even then, Evalyn Knapp is billed ahead of him. But like so many other players from Tin Pan Alley, she never went much further in film and was forgotten by the 1940s. Wayne is one of a small number of players who got a start in the bottom rung of movie makers but who climbed to the highest rung and stardom. The acting is so-so here, but it does show that Wayne had some talent and early on was comfortable in front of the camera. He would go on to make many more films of various genres, including a host of dime Westerns before the 1939 John Ford film, "Stagecoach," that caused his star to rise.

Steven Torrey I found the movie charming. (I missed the opening credits and did not realize John Wayne at age 26 was the lead male star. As the film progressed, I thought--'that sounds like John Wayne' though he barely looked like the John Wayne we all recognize... And sure enough...) It wasn't an oh so terrible movie; it was well paced, fairly coherent and sensible and believable in that 1933 believable way. John Wayne (as Dick Wallace)is something of a carouser and occasional drunk whose banker father--Reginald Barlow as Mr. Wallace--despairs of his son doing anything respectable.Dick Wallace is sent by his father to Somerville to collect a debt from the local preacher, whose daughter--Evelyn Knapp as Marion Hall--he met on the way at a local gas station, only to fall for the daughter....Long story short...boy meets girl, boy greets girl, boy seats girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.... (Like you never heard that before...) But despite the storyline as old as the hills, the movie had charm and was well worth the look see.And the YouTube video was more than passable.

csteidler Grumpy millionaire businessman Mr. Wallace is fed up with his wild son. The young man is out late again, the "girl crazy young squirt." Eventually the wayward son arrives home; the old man corrals him, assigns him to yet another position in his company, and orders him to be on the job at 9:00 a.m.The son, of course, is John Wayne. He doesn't look totally convincing as a prodigal rich kid, but really is hard to resist. His new job is going to be as a bill collector, and he has a hilarious scene practicing in the mirror—wagging his finger and demanding payment. The plot moves fast…the Duke has a kind of girl friend who is an obvious gold digger. He goes outstate to try and collect a debt from a small town minister. The minister's granddaughter (Evalyn Knapp) is quite spirited, very pretty, and is not impressed with Wayne's spoiled overconfidence in his own charms. Naturally, he quickly falls in love with her. Meanwhile, back home, the gold digger is plotting to marry him at her earliest opportunity….In what is a long story compressed into a matter of moments, Knapp winds up married to Wayne and working incognito as his old man's secretary. It goes on from there but never really gels as a convincing story. Evalyn Knapp is really pretty good as the granddaughter—her performance is lively and covers a nice range of emotion and expression. Also, her character has virtually all of the brains in the entire picture. Reginald Barlow is energetic as the often scowling, occasionally crowing millionaire dad. John Wayne is kind of funny…he has a kind of odd charm, even in a role so unsuited to his talents. He seems to be at his best—most natural—in a couple of scenes with a neighborhood kid who eggs him on and helps him out. It's not believable for a minute, partly because everything happens so fast and (often) for so little apparent reason. Enjoyable enough, however, if only for the presence of Wayne and the nice performance by the wonderful Evalyn Knapp.

bkoganbing During a time when John Wayne was doing some B westerns and appearing in a few other films for Warner Brothers, he was apparently lent out to an independent outfit called Showmen's Pictures where he was the male lead in a comedy called His Private Secretary. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Granted that the film doesn't exactly have the production values that one would have associated with the major studios and it can't get a better rating from me because of that. Still the performances were not bad and the Duke did a fine job in this one.John Wayne plays the young playboy son of banker Reginald Barlow and all he has on his mind is chasing women. He's the despair of dear old dad who would like the Duke to just settle down in the family business. When he agrees to come to work, his first assignment is to get some deadbeat to cough up his loan money or foreclose. Remember this is the Great Depression and a lot of people were in similar circumstances. But in this case the deadbeat is minister Alec B. Francis who has a pretty granddaughter Evelyn Knapp and with the Duke it's always pleasure before business. Because Knapp doesn't immediately fall for his line and shows a serious side he's not seen in many women, Wayne is really taken with her. I think I need not say more because if you've seen thirties type comedies you know where this is heading.The interesting thing to speculate is if this film had been the product of one of the major studios and had been given production values and a distribution level commiserate with same, what kind of turn John Wayne's career might have taken.