Hats Off

I was wondering why John Payne looked like and acted like Jimmy Stewart in this movie. I think it was because 1936 was Stewart's break out year. He starred in four movies and had good parts in four more. His career was exploding. Somebody probably saw Payne and figured people would think he was Stewart. Payne never quite reached Stewart's level of super-stardom, but he seemed to have a greater acting range, playing tough guys as easily as sweetheart roles. Here, he is quite affable and charming. One wishes he had more screen time. This is also Sam Fuller's first screenplay. I am not that familiar with Fuller's corpus except for some of his major works - "The Big Red One," "Shock Corridor" "The Naked Kiss" and "Pick Up on South Street." This seems quite different from the other works that I've seen by him, much lighter in tone. Mae Clarke is dull and Helen Lynn does seem to be doing a Gracie Allen imitation. Only Luis Alberni as Rosero hits the right notes to brighten the film a bit. The other characters are not given enough screen time to make a solid impression. This is just passable and I think only John Payne fans would really be interested enough to watch the whole thing.