Big Brown Eyes (1936)

Big Brown Eyes
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Bert Hanlon and Raoul Walsh based on a story by James Edward Grant
1936/USA
Walter Wanger Productions for Paramount Pictures
First viewing

[box] Editor: Wait! Wait!

Eve Fallon: You wait… you look like a waiter anyway.[/box]

This movie was a sure sign that Raoul Walsh was not to make his name for directing snappy romantic crime films.

Eve Fallon (Joan Bennett) is a manicurist in a hotel salon.  She trades wise cracks with all her flirtatious customers and her boyfriend Police Detective Dan Barr (Cary Grant).  There is an epidemic of jewel thefts in town and it seems like insurance detective Richard Morey (Walter Pigeon) always recovers the jewels.  We soon find out that Morey is the ringleader of the gang of thieves.  The editor of the local newspaper thinks Eve has brains and hires her as a reporter.  One of the gang members accidentally kills a baby in a park.  Eve uses her nose for news to help Dan catch the bad guys.  Throughout, the couple are bickering merrily.  With Lloyd Nolan as a gangster.

Poor reliable Cary Grant and Joan Bennett just couldn’t overcome the material they had to work with.  The plot is full of holes and most of the comedy falls flat.  A running thread is Eve’s jealousy of Dan’s supposed flirtation with a jewel theft victim.  Only trouble is that the woman is a ditzy society matron at least 20 years older than Dan.  I never believed that she would have given Bennett a moments heartache.

I have to go out of town for a couple of weeks to get my parents’ house ready for sale and will be away from my trusty DVD player.  I trust I’ll have some more exciting fare waiting for me when I get back.