Such Things Happen

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Is the Broadway columnist for a big New York paper. He's also in love with gorgeous Frances Dee, just back in the City with her aunt Cecil Cunningham. She's trying to promote a career, either on the stage or Park Avenue, and Doug is trying to help her with the former, as well as a fortune in rubber checks she's passed. But gangster Lyle Talbot is also interested in the lady, and has paid off the checks. He's expecting something in return. Can newspaper pals Lee Tracy and Ann Dvorak figure out where Fairbanks has been kidnapped to?

With that title and William Wellman directing, I was expecting a sardonic comedy; after all, he would helm NOTHING SACRED and ROXIE HART. But Wellman was a master of the tough-men-bonding-in-tough-circumstances stories that Howard Hawks and John Ford liked to tell, and it became clear about halfway through that this movie is about that. The humor starts to drain out of movie about a third of the way in, along with the idea of romantic love. It is replaced, though, with love born of respect and risks faced together. Nor does it limit itself to men, with Miss Dvorak giving one of her graceful, understated performances.