Hook, Line and Sinker

1930 "Riding a Cyclone of Laughs Through a Broadway Hotel"
Hook, Line and Sinker
5.9| 1h15m| en| More Info
Released: 26 December 1930 Released
Producted By: RKO Radio Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Two fast-talking insurance salesmen meet Mary, who is running away from her wealthy mother, and they agree to help her run a hotel that she owns. When they find out that the hotel is run down and nearly abandoned, they launch a phony PR campaign that presents the hotel as a resort favored by the rich. Their advertising succeeds too well, and many complications soon arise.

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bkoganbing Hook Line And Sinker has Wheeler&Woolsey meeting Dorothy Lee on a road way while they successfully talk a cop out of a speeding ticket and sell insurance to him. She's running away from her mother's arranged marriage to the family attorney Ralf Harolde. Lee talks the boys into helping her run a fleabag hotel which is in her name.There's a good reason why Harolde wants to marry her. In reality he's a gangster and he's used the place as a crook's hideout for years. But when Bert and Bob take it over they start a publicity campaign which works all too well saying the place has become THE in vacation resort for society folks. They come bringing all their money and jewels. Society bigwigs and gangsters, what a spot for a caper.As for the romance Lee of course falls for Bert and her mother the amazonian Jobyna Howland just loves the moves that Woolsey is putting on her. Harolde's being foiled at every turn. It all leads up to a gangster invasion and a hilarious shootout at the climax.This is a good introduction to Wheeler&Woolsey who are too sadly neglected today.
dbborroughs This is a very funny film starring Wheeler and Woolsey, a comedy team that is all but forgotten these days. Their brand of humor tended to be verbal and punny, but they were also adept physical comedians as well.Here the pair end up helping, and romancing, a runaway fom a rich family. She's inherited a hotel and the boys decide to help her turn it into THE hot spot. Using their way with words they manage to have newspapers write the place up---mentioning how safe their safe is. This of course brings a steady stream of crooks all of which want to be the one to crack the safe.Extremely well written, the film suffers from a few slow spots where the fast and furious dialog stop for a silent shot or moment. Normally it wouldn't be bad, but here it off sets the pacing of the film, which for the most part is fast moving, even if it seems not to have a direction.If you want to see a good comedy you haven't seen before, by all means pick this up, its 75 minutes well spent.
didi-5 The downside of this movie, one of the early collaborations of Bert Wheeler (the sweet curly-haired guy) and Robert Woolsey (the cigar-chomping wise guy), has one major failing for me: no musical numbers! I think this is the only one of the their nine-year series at RKO not to have even one song, and I missed that.Anyway, the film is pretty much on-form. The boys play insurance agents who go into the hotel business after meeting heiress Dorothy Lee (I think this is her weakest performance, far too stilted to make any kind of good impression on the viewer). The hotel she has inherited is a wreck but they soon make it good (how we don't see) and attract the attentions of some jewel thieves. Dorothy's mother (the large and booming-voiced Jobyna Howland) and her intended (the urbane Ralf Harolde who played a similar role in the earlier 'Dixiana') also arrive to thwart the plans made so far. In support are Stanley Fields, George Marion (as the oldest bellhop in the world), and Hugh Herbert (the sleepy house detective), and all are watchable.There are a few highlights amongst the set pieces, the noirish shootout at the end, Natalie Moorhead as the fake Duchess vamping the boys for the safe code, Howland's tales to Woolsey about her numerous previous marriages, and more. Good stuff, but that scene with Bert and Dorothy planning their future by the hotel till really needs a song!
borsch While this comedy falls off a little towards the end, it's still a great repository for the Funny Stuff that W and W did best. You might call Bert and Bob "Dumb and Smarter", with Wheeler's sweet-natured shlub a perfect match for Woolsey's sly, Groucho-esque wisecracker. The story shell is pure silliness, and the double-entendres come fast and furious. This certainly isn't their best vehicle, but anytime you see these guys in the cable schedule(which, alas, is not often), WATCH 'EM!!