Fast and Furious 1939

     Joel and Garda Sloan work together as detectives and they also sell rare books in New York.  Garda wants to take a vacation to Seaside City.  New York is already having a warm spell but she turns up the thermostat and puts a heating pad under Joel’s chair at his desk.  He agrees to go on the trip but it doesn’t turn out as Garda planned.  Joel’s pal Mike Stevens is managing and preparing for a beauty pageant.  Joel is selected as a judge and he has invested $5,000 in the pageant.  The promoter of the pageant is Eric Bartell.  He arrives on the scene and he plans to con Stevens.  Bartell ends up murdered and Joel and Garda investigate the murder.

     I didn’t think this was very good?  It certainly is very different from the Fast and Furious franchise of this time period!!  I recently watched Between Two Women from 1937 with Franchot Tone and I thought it was good so I watched this film.  I wasn’t interested at all in the beauty pageant!!  There is a LOT of arguing between Joel and Garda over the pageant.  There is a LOT of none pageant business going on between some of the men and the contestants?  Possibly it’s too dated?  2* (I didn’t like this movie)

73 min, Comedy directed by Busby Berkeley with Franchot Tone, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey, Lee Bowman, Allyn Joslyn, John Miljan, Bernard Nedell, Cliff Clark.

Note:  Imdb 6.2 out of 10, Letterboxd 3.2* out of 5*, TCM Leonard Maltin 2 ½* of 4*.

Special Note:  Filmed at Rainbow Pier, Long Beach and Culver City, California.  There are several actors listed in the studio records for this film but they never appear?  This is the third and last film in the Fast trilogy.  It started in 1938 with Melvyn Douglas and Florence Knight in the film Fast Company.  Then there was Fast and Loose with Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell of 1939.  This was the first film shown in newly liberated Copenhagen Denmark after a five-year German occupation during WWII.