Fast and Loose ** (1930, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, Frank Morgan, Charles Starrett, Henry Wadsworth, Winifred Harris) – Classic Movie Review 12,619

Siblings Miriam Hopkins and Henry Wadsworth want to marry people (Charles Starrett and Carole Lombard) their parents (Frank Morgan, Winifred Harris) think beneath them. Paramount Pictures’ 1930 film Fast and Loose is a pretty amusing romantic comedy.

Director Fred C Newmeyer’s 1930 Paramount Pictures black and white comedy film Fast and Loose stars Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, Frank Morgan, Charles Starrett, Henry Wadsworth, and Winifred Harris.

Siblings Marion (Miriam Hopkins) and Bertie (Henry Wadsworth) both want to marry people their wealthy, traditional Long Island parents (Frank Morgan, Winifred Harris) think unsuitable and beneath them. The parents try to intervene to stop them marrying auto mechanic Henry Morgan (Charles Starrett) and chorus girl Alice O’Neil (Carole Lombard), but love and fate find a way.

Fast and Loose is a pretty amusing romantic comedy. But, with a shaky tone that mixes being revoltingly snobbish with being breezily farcical, plus a lack of enough really good jokes and funny lines, it isn’t nearly as good as the cast or involvement of the young writer Preston Sturges as dialogue writer would imply.

It is very much a film buff’s curio item though, with all its cult appeal.

It is written by Doris Anderson (screen story), Jack Kirkland (screen story) and Preston Sturges (dialogue), based on the stage play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood, which ran on Broadway for 142 performances from 19 August 1924. The play was filmed as the 1925 silent film The Best People before Paramount retooled it into a vehicle for Broadway star Miriam Hopkins, who had just signed with the studio. Hopwood’s 1919 play The Gold Diggers is the basis of the Warner Bros movie musicals.

The cast are Miriam Hopkins as Marion Lenox, Carole Lombard as Alice O’Neil, Frank Morgan as Bronson Lenox, Charles Starrett as Henry Morgan, Henry Wadsworth as Bertie Lenox, Winifred Harris as Carrie Lenox, Herbert Yost as George Grafton, David Hutcheson as Lord Rockingham, Ilka Chase as Millie Montgomery, and Herschel Mayall as Judge Summers.

Fun fact: A mistake in the credits turned Carol Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters on 6 October 1908) into Carole Lombard, which she then kept as her stage name. She had previously appeared in around 40 films as ‘Carol Lombard’. Paramount had just signed her to a contract after a successful appearance in The Arizona Kid (1930).

The 40 sound films of Carole Lombard.

Lombard appeared in 56 feature films and 18 short films in a career of 21 years before a fatal airplane crash, aged 33.

Fast and Loose is Hopkins’s second film appearance and Preston Sturges’ second Hollywood work, after the 1930 The Big Pond, with Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert.

Fast and Loose is directed by Fred C Newmeyer, runs 70 minutes, is made and distributed by Paramount Pictures, is written by Doris Anderson (screen story), Jack Kirkland (screen story) and Preston Sturges (dialogue), based on the stage play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood, and is shot in black and white by William O Steiner.

Release date: November 8, 1930.

Fast and Loose (1939) with Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell, and Fast and Loose (1954) are not related to this film.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,619

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com