In the 1940s "The Whistler" had Richard Dix as a man who is desperately searching for an unknown man who he has hired to take his own life - now he wants to stop the contract. It was nail biting stuff and was one of the top entries in the darkly noir Whistler series. Almost 30 years previously Douglas Fairbanks had played it for laughs!! He is Augy Holliday a temperamental artist who can "draw everything except a salary"!! For once Fairbanks is not wealthy but he is able to poke fun at rent collectors - even poverty, as all he can do is to paint a picture of a steak dinner that his hungry dogs devour!!
He falls in love with Gladys (sweet Jewel Carmen), a girl walking in the park who his friend Harry seems to know. But poor Augy is tongue tied with Gladys and can only rehearse with her friend all the endearments he can't say to Gladys!! Of course she overhears their conversation and turns to the man her mother has picked out for her!! but the unkindest cut of all is when he returns home and finds that the portrait he has painted of her, that he would not sell at any price, has been stolen!
The laughs start to come when Doug decides to end it all - first he decides to gas himself but an unpaid bill means the gas has already been turned off. He then makes the acquaintance of "Automatic Joe" - the hit-man who never misses. George Beranger gets just as many laughs as Doug and gleefully rolls out the many ways of death at his disposal. But professional killers also have sick mothers and Joe now promises to go straight! In the meantime Augy's luck has changed - his painting has been found, a friend has lent him money, his stepmother has died leaving him a millionaire and Gladys now knows all and wants to make amends. Augy is now scared witless that Joe is still on his war path - he is - on the Salvation Army warpath!!
Augy goes to the police and they assign him "the Correspondence School Detective" a lamebrain who is forever under the police's feet. Very funny in parts but not consistent and could have used more of what made "Wild and Woolly" so hilarious.
He falls in love with Gladys (sweet Jewel Carmen), a girl walking in the park who his friend Harry seems to know. But poor Augy is tongue tied with Gladys and can only rehearse with her friend all the endearments he can't say to Gladys!! Of course she overhears their conversation and turns to the man her mother has picked out for her!! but the unkindest cut of all is when he returns home and finds that the portrait he has painted of her, that he would not sell at any price, has been stolen!
The laughs start to come when Doug decides to end it all - first he decides to gas himself but an unpaid bill means the gas has already been turned off. He then makes the acquaintance of "Automatic Joe" - the hit-man who never misses. George Beranger gets just as many laughs as Doug and gleefully rolls out the many ways of death at his disposal. But professional killers also have sick mothers and Joe now promises to go straight! In the meantime Augy's luck has changed - his painting has been found, a friend has lent him money, his stepmother has died leaving him a millionaire and Gladys now knows all and wants to make amends. Augy is now scared witless that Joe is still on his war path - he is - on the Salvation Army warpath!!
Augy goes to the police and they assign him "the Correspondence School Detective" a lamebrain who is forever under the police's feet. Very funny in parts but not consistent and could have used more of what made "Wild and Woolly" so hilarious.