Conrad Nagel is an investigator for the Justice Department. With the assistance of Eleanor Hunt, he is trying to trail down some bank robbers operating out of Hollywood. Little do the pair suspect that one of the gang is Frank Milan, who is posing as a writer and romancing Nagel's sister, Wilmer Francis.
It's the fourth and last pairing of Nagel and Hunt for Grand National, and the direction by Louis Gasnier is all right, if a bit talky. Less amusing to me is comic relief Vince Barnett. Barnett had a reputation as a real-life practical joker, but his appearances in movies tend to be mechanical and not very funny. In this one, he's a newspaper photographer whose tripod is always knocked under; he gets tangled up in the story from his second job, moonlighting as a private detective, for no obvious reason; apparently his unadorned pratfalls were considered amusing. I don't find them so.
In the 1920s, Conrad Nagel was one of those male leading men who could co-star with a woman and not overshadow her. With the dawn of sound, his cultured, recordable voice made him much in demand for a few years. However, while always competent, his appeal was rather wan; one reviewer noted "he looked like Leslie Howard without the raw Latin sexuality." Fortunately, he was well respected, was President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science, did well in radio and on stage.
It's the fourth and last pairing of Nagel and Hunt for Grand National, and the direction by Louis Gasnier is all right, if a bit talky. Less amusing to me is comic relief Vince Barnett. Barnett had a reputation as a real-life practical joker, but his appearances in movies tend to be mechanical and not very funny. In this one, he's a newspaper photographer whose tripod is always knocked under; he gets tangled up in the story from his second job, moonlighting as a private detective, for no obvious reason; apparently his unadorned pratfalls were considered amusing. I don't find them so.
In the 1920s, Conrad Nagel was one of those male leading men who could co-star with a woman and not overshadow her. With the dawn of sound, his cultured, recordable voice made him much in demand for a few years. However, while always competent, his appeal was rather wan; one reviewer noted "he looked like Leslie Howard without the raw Latin sexuality." Fortunately, he was well respected, was President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science, did well in radio and on stage.