Jack Holt is the key man in the city's political machine, a position he maintains by doing favors. When his young brother, Jimmy Butler, is barred from playing in his school's baseball team because of poor grades, Holt tries to fix it with Jimmy's teacher, Mona Barrie. She agrees to a make-up test. She catches the boy cheating, and calls it off. Holt has her fired, and this kicks off a political storm.
It's an odd mixture of reform politics and romantic comedy, and Holt is stiff and casual in his trademark Fearless-Fosdick manner until the very end. There are scads of the great supporting players that Columbia could pick up on the cheap in this period: Winnie Lightner has a yen for Eddie Brophy, Charles Lane (as Charles Levinson, his real name) is a reporter who breaks the story to his editor, Clarence Wilson, and other actors welcome to fans of old movies include Nedda Harrigan, Charles Wilson, and that old vampire-killer, Edward Van Sloan.
Director Roy William Neill certainly keeps things moving along at a lively clip, but this movie was never intended for more than an unambitious second feature, and there's no depth to it. Still, at less than 70 minutes, it's a painless little effort.
It's an odd mixture of reform politics and romantic comedy, and Holt is stiff and casual in his trademark Fearless-Fosdick manner until the very end. There are scads of the great supporting players that Columbia could pick up on the cheap in this period: Winnie Lightner has a yen for Eddie Brophy, Charles Lane (as Charles Levinson, his real name) is a reporter who breaks the story to his editor, Clarence Wilson, and other actors welcome to fans of old movies include Nedda Harrigan, Charles Wilson, and that old vampire-killer, Edward Van Sloan.
Director Roy William Neill certainly keeps things moving along at a lively clip, but this movie was never intended for more than an unambitious second feature, and there's no depth to it. Still, at less than 70 minutes, it's a painless little effort.