Veteran stage comic Fred Stone had a brief run as a leading man in several B pictures at RKO radio, and they are mighty difficult to try to get through for the most part. When the laughs come unintentionally from a minor character in a film, you know something has gone wrong. Stone and his wife Emma Dunn live on a farm in the middle of the country and have different goals for daughter Marjorie Lord. Stone is hoping she'll find love among the locals while Dunn wants her to go to the big city, find a job and meet the beautiful people where she believes culture thrives. When some big city visitors pass through, she opens their house to them, not realizing that they are criminals. of course the audience knows because one of them is Bradley Page who pretty much never played anything but sleazy businessman, shady lawyers or crooks. Going to New York City on a favor asked by Page, Stone and Lord find that it is not exactly a dream come true. Back on the farm, everything comes together when the real identities of page and his cronies are revealed.
This is another one of those films that typecasts country-folk as dummies, so naive in the ways of the outside world that they are unable to see suspicious characters even when they are face to face. The humor is so corny that it creates grounds not laughs, although I did laugh at the character who spoke with a constant whistle in his voice. I must admit it was a reluctance laugh but I found it endearing simply because nothing about the film other than that even struck me as remotely humorous. I wouldn't say that this is a ridiculously bad film, it's just that being promoted as a rural comedy, I didn't find really any humor outside the town whistler. Stone, best known for playing the father in "Alice Adams", is pretty much D.O.A. career wise as a result of this film, and Dunn's harpy wife basically seems to have no heart. She would be much better when she added sweetness chew the character of Dr Kildares mother in that long-running MGM series. The only thing about Hideaway that I can see in this film is that the memory of it will Hideaway in the corner of my film going mind, only to come forth if I accidentally happened to watch it again.
This is another one of those films that typecasts country-folk as dummies, so naive in the ways of the outside world that they are unable to see suspicious characters even when they are face to face. The humor is so corny that it creates grounds not laughs, although I did laugh at the character who spoke with a constant whistle in his voice. I must admit it was a reluctance laugh but I found it endearing simply because nothing about the film other than that even struck me as remotely humorous. I wouldn't say that this is a ridiculously bad film, it's just that being promoted as a rural comedy, I didn't find really any humor outside the town whistler. Stone, best known for playing the father in "Alice Adams", is pretty much D.O.A. career wise as a result of this film, and Dunn's harpy wife basically seems to have no heart. She would be much better when she added sweetness chew the character of Dr Kildares mother in that long-running MGM series. The only thing about Hideaway that I can see in this film is that the memory of it will Hideaway in the corner of my film going mind, only to come forth if I accidentally happened to watch it again.
