Broadway Limited

The Broadway Limited is much funnier, and more consistently funny, than many better-known screwball comedies of the period. Its plot builds on several interlaced misunderstandings. A movie star (Marjorie Woodworth) is pressured by her scheming, tyrannical Hollywood producer (Leonid Kinskey) to pretend to adopt a baby for publicity purposes. The producer's assistant (Patsy Kelly) turns to an ex-boyfriend, a railroad engineer (Victor McLaglen), to borrow a baby for the stunt, but the baby he gets may have been kidnapped and the subject of a widespread police hunt. The movie star runs into her ex-boyfriend (Dennis O'Keefe), who thinks the baby really is hers. And the baby keeps disappearing and reappearing on a cross-country train trip.

As in many comedies, the romantic lead roles are blander and less interesting than those written for the character actors, who get all the best lines. Top-billed Victor McLaglen has a substantial role -- watch his underplayed reaction to the bratty kid who asks him, "Is that your real face?" But so does Leonid Kinskey, who has a ball and one of his biggest parts ever as the manipulative producer. Down-to-earth Patsy Kelly replaced dithering Zazu Pitts as Thelma Todd's partner in two-reel comedies, but this is the only film in which they appeared together. That's a shame, as they make a superb team, particularly when they share a bed with the baby (and a leaky hot-water bottle) between them.