From Modern Screen, 1936

Pictures like this are few and far between.  It is outstandingly good on every point that goes into the manufacture of a movie.  The cast is not only composed of big names, but every member has drawn roles for which he is admirably fitted.  Jean Harlow goes slithery again as the grass widow in pursuit of Spencer Tracy, a newspaper man who can’t spare ten minutes for the wedding ceremony, particularly after he okays a scandal about a millionaire’s daughter, Myrna Loy, and has to hire William Powell, a man-about-the-world, to help him out.  Powell’s job is to get Myrna madly in love with him and, in order to pave the way for blackmail, he first marries Jean, an idea which only Tracy thinks good – at the time.  And, in order to get Myrna, Powell must work through her father, Walter Connolly, whose main interest in life is fishing, a subject which Powell has to learn overnight in his hotel suite with the aid of E. E. Clive, a fishing teacher.  The screen play is excellently written with complications piling up as fast as the laughs, and ending, of course, with the four stars being paired off to everyone’s satisfaction.  In the supporting cast, Walter Connolly, Charley Grapewin, Cora Witherspoon, Lauri Beatty and Charles Trowbridge score heavily.  Photography is tops and the gowns and set alone are worth the price of admission.  In short, you can’t go wrong on this one.

From Photoplay, 1936

With the excellent talents of Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow added to the sure-fire team of Myrna Loy and Bill Powell, and with a complicated but highly original story, this is one of the most hilarious farces to hit the screen.  Each of the four stars top their own previous vivid performances.

            Tracy is the conscientious managing editor of a newspaper and can find no time from his duties to marry Jean Harlow.  He prints a false scandal about Myrna Loy, pampered daughter of a millionaire, and she responds with a libel suit for five million dollars.  Whereupon Powell, suave man of the world, enters the fracas to compromise Myrna so that her court action will be worthless.  A wife is necessary to the plot so Tracy offers his fiancée as stooge.

            Wary Myrna balks all of the tricky Powell plans.  Her father Walter Connelly is a famous fisherman and Powell pursues the elusive trout with him in a howling sequence.  Eventually both Myrna and the temporary wife fall in love with the debonair adventurer.

            This is essentially Bill Powell’s picture.  He cares little what he does or how he looks in order to get a laugh, yet manages to keep his actions from being a burlesque of good taste.

            Myrna is subtly poised as usual.  Tracy offers the restrained vitality of his better performances, and Jean Harlow protests about everything rather convincingly.

            The story itself, an original by a former newspaper man Wallace Sullivan is well suited to the stars and is ably directed by Jack Conway.