Up Pops the Devil ** (1931, Carole Lombard, Norman Foster, Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, Stuart Erwin, Carole Lombard, Lilyan Tashman) – Classic Movie Review 10,691

Up Pops the Devil (1931) is a strange title for a forgettable role swap, home husband tale of a working wife Anne Merrick (Carole Lombard) helping her writer husband Steve (Norman Foster) by taking a job as a dancer in a Broadway show when he quits his job in advertising to concentrate on writing a novel, straining their marriage.

Director A Edward Sutherland’s lumbering Lombard vehicle falls between two stools: it is not really a comedy, though it seems to purport to be, and it is certainly not dramatic enough as a drama.

Instead, neither effectively funny nor properly serious, it just appears and then after 74 minutes finishes, barely causing a ripple along the way, though to be fair there are some amusing moments and performances, and the basic set-up is good. With the script by Arthur Kober (adaptation) and Eve Unsell (screenplay) based on a stage play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, the early sound film is very stagey and set bound. The delightful Lombard’s appealing performance is its main saving grace, and Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher amuses too as Biney Hatfield.

It is remade as the Bob Hope vehicle Thanks for the Memory (1938).

The screenplay is based on a three-act play with the same title written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. The play ran on Broadway for 148 performances from September 1930 to January 1931 at New York City’s Theatre Masque.

The stage play on which this film is based was adapted into the stage musical ‘Everybody’s Welcome’ starring Oscar Shaw. It ran for 139 performances in 1931-32 and introduced and showcased the song ‘As Time Goes By’.

Also in the cast are Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, Stuart Erwin, Lilyan Tashman, Edward J Nugent, Theodore von Eltz, Joyce Compton, Harry Beresford, Willie Best, Claire Dodd, Effie Ellaler, Eulalie Jensen, Pat Moriarty, Guy Oliver, Matty Roubert and Marguerite Warner.

Up Pops the Devil is produced and released by Paramount Pictures.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,691

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