Vacation from Love

Saxophone player Dennis O'Keefe spots Florence Rice at the nightclub and falls instantly in love. He breaks up her wedding, and soon they are married. But after a while, they have doubts.

This is a prime example of screwball comedy gone wrong, as if the screenwriters, headed by Patterson McNutt -- clearly chosen on the basis of his name -- were told "Screwball is about people in evening clothes behaving bizarrely" and leaving it at that. A good comic cast, including Reginald Owen and Herman Bing try hard under the direction of George Fitzmaurice, but to no avail. Screwball, at its core, is about the battle between the sexes and class warfare. Here, the principal problem seems to be with Miss Rice's character. Who seems to think that marriage needs to be amusing if you're a nitwit.