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Cinemactor Lebedeff gives a bright-eyed performance as an irresistible ladies' man. It is clear that his employers hope that one day he will be their Valentino. He does his duty as a spy with a maximum of flirtation, gold-buttons, waltzing, suave intimidations and grimaces. His savoir-faire is taxed too severely only once—when the heroine, of whom he is enamored, accuses him of being too attentive to another woman, whom he suspects of being the spy he is trying to capture. Richard Boleslavsky's direction is more expert and more original than was required by so commonplace a story but it helps make The Gay Diplomat an adequate romantic melodrama. Typical shot: Lebedeff making friends with a Genevieve Tobin by peeking into her handbag.
New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ). Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, hero of a book and magazine saga written by George Randolph Chester, has become a classic figure of the stage and cinema. This time, Wallingford is William Haines, who lacks the fat paunch, the long cigar attributed to his hero by Author Chester. His adventures, though new in particulars, are familiar in pattern. It is Jimmy ("Schnozzle") Durante, long-nosed cabaret comedian, who provides the laughable variations.
He is Wallingford's most loyal if not his most able assistant. When Wallingford dupes the leading citizens of a small town into buying stock in what he believes to be a worthless undertaking, Durante is delighted. He prowls about, muttering or screeching words whose meaning pleases him. Defeated in an argument, he scowls and says "I'm silenced." And when Wallingford, to retain the respect of a small-town girl, plans to reimburse his stockholders, Durante is disgusted. "Putty in their hands,''' he growls, wagging his absurd snout. Wallingford's wildcat holding company is discovered in the end to be a sound investment. Durante is last seen lighting his cigaret with a worthless check and chortling at a chief of police.
Durante's fame as a comedian is due partly to his long nose; partly to a facility in wisecracking which he acquired while assisting in his father's barber shop; and partly to two other comedians, Eddie Jackson and Lou Clayton. With Clayton & Jackson, Durante attracted the attention of Florenz Ziegfeld by wild antics which entertained the patrons of various Manhattan nightclubs and the Palace Theatre (vaudeville). Ziegfeld gave the team a run in Show Girl two years ago. Early in his career, Durante had been a night-club entertainer in Harlem, a piano-player in Coney Island where he ballyhooed his own act and described himself as "the great Jimmy Durante." As eccentric off the stage as on it, he likes eating piecrust so much that he carries it around in his pocket, has a secretary to see that his clothes are buttoned up when he gives a performance, experiences difficulty pronouncing long words. He claims not to understand most criticisms of his work, values them chiefly for their length. Nicknamed "Schnozzle," he has the same nickname in this picture, will be billed as "Schnozzle" Durante wherever the picture plays.