Fast and Furious (1939)

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Siskoid
Not gonna pretend, I watched 1939's Fast and Furious just so I could make car jokes. In fact very little car (or fast, or furious) content in this Thin Man rip-off, but I still managed to enjoy it. I'm laying that at the feet of Ann Sothern who is sexy and charming as all get-out as the detective's wife (who herself is more sleuth than slouch in that department), with some high-quality couples flirting and all the best zingers. Even if Franchot Tone necessarily plays the main character, he's always second banana to her. As far as the plot goes, it at least has the virtue of the detective screwing up and his meddling not being appreciated by the local police. After about a half-hour of comedy shenanigans as Tone is signed as a beauty pageant judge against his will, the murder mystery begins, with enough suspects to keep one's interest, but the solution rather lame. There's also a cartoony subplot about a lion tamer, and it loses all the points for featuring a racist caricature (though the white folks kind of have the same caricatured reactions to the lions, I guess). So where was I? Oh yeah, Tone and Sothern should have had a kid because IT'S ABOUT FAMILY! [car spins out] 3 years 11 months ago