HIS PRIVATE SECRETARY

HIS PRIVATE SECRETARY (1933). Director: Philip Whitman.

Dick Wallace (John Wayne) is a good-natured, girl-happy playboy addicted to gals, parties and late nights. His grumpy father (Reginald Barlow) takes him into his firm but fires him on the first day when he fails to collect money owed by a minister. It seems the cleric uses his funds to help the poor -- and he happens to have a pretty daughter, Marion (Evalyn Knapp). Dick and Marion get married, but the elder Wallace wants nothing to do with them. Marion gets a job as the old man's private secretary and uses it to ingratiate herself with him, but a bigger problem may be Dick's old girlfriend, the slinky and conniving Polly (Natalie Kingston). His Private Secretary isn't as interesting as it sounds, but the likable characters and players help a lot. There's a nice scene when kindly Marion intercedes when Wallace fires dyspeptic employee, Mr. Little (Arthur Hoyt), even though he wasn't all that nice to her. Wayne [Legend of the Lost], Knapp and the others all give very good performances. Knapp starred in the sound-remake of the serial The Perils of Pauline the same year.

Verdict: Minor comedy-drama with very pleasant cast. **.

THE PERILS OF PAULINE (1934)

THE PERILS OF PAULINE (1934). 12 chapter Universal serial. Director: Ray Taylor.

This is a sound remake of the silent serial starring Pearl White. In this version the plucky and charming Evalyn Knapp plays Pauline Hargraves, whose father, the Professor, is determined to find the missing half of a piece of a sacred disc found in a temple. The disc contains the formula for a gas that once destroyed some ancient civilizations, but can now perhaps be used for more positive results. Unfortunately, the evil Dr. Bashan (a highly striking and effective John Davidson) and his associate Mr. Fang, want the formula for their own evil ends, and will stop at nothing to get the second half of the disc before the professor, Pauline, and handsome adventurer Bob Ward (Robert Allen) can do so. Pauline and her group have to deal with explosions, storms at sea, a hurling leopard, and a knife-wielding human tigress in twelve episodes, but the liveliest cliffhanger of all comes at the end of chapter seven. In this a hotel our heroine stays at just happens to have a shark pool [!] fed by an underground passage below her balcony. [Even the characters remark upon the illogic of this even as they try to rationalize it.] Of course Pauline and Bob wind up falling into the pool and are nearly eaten by the fish. There's a tomb full of ghostly moans and a well-executed plunge through a trap door into the water far below in chapter eight. For comedy relief there's the professor's milquetoast secretary Willie Dodge (Sonny Ray). A running joke has Dodge always saying “I'm afraid I'll have to resign my position as your secretary” after some especially harrowing mishap. The action bounces around from Shanghai to India to New York and elsewhere.

Verdict: This is a good and very entertaining chapterplay that is full of action and lively fisticuffs. ***.