Such Fools As Bought Tickets ...

Bogart Bolsters a "B" --- Men Are Such Fools

Among Warners' declarative titles --- there had been Women Are Like That not long before, and maybe enterprising exhibitors played them together. As things work about, the fools are evenly represented by men and women. Big lunkhead Wayne Morris thinks Priscilla Lane should stay home and be a good wife rather than burn up Madison Avenue with eager ad exec Humphrey Bogart. I'd have preferred her choosing Bogie, but marriage ties under the Code being inviolate, we know status quo will be maintained, however depressing the outcome. Did movies like this keep people chained to rotten home lives? The yarn was based on Faith Baldwin, her stuff generally good for melodrama poured easy (Beauty For Sale, Wife vs. Secretary), but not previously played for so much comedy as here.

Honest treatment of issues was out of the question anyway, what with a baleful PCA. Wed women were often offered better propositions, but wait, it was men generally writing these things, few eager to empower the sex they wanted to remain fair, and compliant (check Loretta Young and Weekend Marriage). Men Are Such Fools was a "B" (negative cost: $348K) produced by David Lewis, who was starting out on WB staff, and directed by Busby Berkeley, whose ritual humbling this was. Lewis later told interviewing James Curtis that lead lady Priscilla Lane was "just a cutie-pie and not a good actress." He also spoke of struggle toward a usable script; we could wonder at what horror he started out with.

Men's main object was to consolidate stardom of Wayne Morris, featured the previous season in Kid Galahad and called swoon-worthy by fan mags. Columnist Jimmy Fidler tagged him "outstanding star discovery of the year," but that wouldn't get WB's job done so long as they bungled Morris via parts ham-fisted and unsympathetic as Men Are Such Fools. Gold, however, is where you find it, and there are nuggets here to ease pain of 69 minutes. Bogart is an obvious best reason to watch, reprising Broadway juveniles his lot pre-Hollywood. Athletic as well, it's pleases when HB does a graceful and headlong dive into a swimming pool with Priscilla Lane, less so where he's served a knuckle sandwich by Wayne Morris. I hadn't mentioned Hugh Herbert. In fact, let's not. Men Are Such Fools lost $180K for Warners in 1938, partly due to microscopic foreign rentals (85K). Guess there were bigger fish to fry beyond borders that year.