Girl Missing
                                                                                          
Director: Robert Florey
Year: 1933
Rating: 6.0
A tough talking Warner Brothers quickie directed by Robert Florey (The Cocoanuts, Murders in the Rue Morgue) that is an express train with no stops along the way. The tough talking comes at the courtesy of Glenda Farrell who was one of Warner's go to females for rat-a-tat dialogue that feels like barbed wire. Her cohort is usually Joan Blondell in these gold digger films but they substitute her with Mary Brian, nicknamed The Sweetest Girl in Pictures. She was Wendy in the 1924 Peter Pan. In these gold digger films Farrell is the hard-bitten brains managing her sexy partner. Brian isn't really sexy but attractive and sweet as a peach. In the opening scene the rotund Guy Kibbee is telling her "I want to make love to you in the worst way". I am sure he would. "You have kept me in the ice box for three weeks now. I want more than kisses.". He has brought her and her buddy Farrell to Palm Beach to be pampered but no sex is the plan from the girls. Not his and when he gets turned down again, he checks out of the hotel without paying their bill. Don't worry Glenda tells her, we will figure out a way. Put on your party dress. Time to go hunting.

 

And a hunting they will go. They find out that one of their former chorus colleagues (Peggy Shannon) is marrying a wealthy millionaire (Ben Lyon) who she has bamboozled into thinking she is high class. Oh well they think. Some girls have all the luck. At the casino that night trying to gamble them into enough money to pay the bill, they meet an old gigolo friend, Lyle Talbot, who takes pity on them and pays off their bill and a ticket back home. But the next night after the wedding of the millionaire, the wife goes missing and a man is found dead. A reward of $25,000 is put up and the two girls decide to stick around to collect it. The mystery isn't much of a mystery but it slides by easily and Farrell is terrific as the tough cookie who figures it all out and gives a verbal poke in the eye to everyone. Look for a small bit by Walter Brennan as the garage attendant. His distinct voice is unmistakable even if he is.  69 minutes.