Hook, Line and Sinker
 
 

(1930)
 
 

Provided by noted film historian/author
William M. Drew
 
 

From "The New York World" December 25, 1930

"The New Films"
By Quinn Martin

"HOOK, LINE AND SINKER," at the Mayfair Theater.  R.K.O. Radio presents a picture written originally for the screen; directed by Edward Cline.
THE CAST
A Hotel Proprietor. . . . . .Robert Woolsey
Another. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bert Wheeler
A Girl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Lee
Her Mother. . . . . . . . . . .Jobyna Howland
 

Hotel Business

The latest of the slapstick and wisecrack comedies of the Bobby Woolsey-Bert Wheeler school is now on view at the Mayfair and I am going to tell you that it is a success.  By some trick of timing, combined with an inexhaustible supply of fresh and semi-vulgar witticisms, both spoken and indicated, Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Wheeler have succeeded by now in propelling themselves into the front ranks of the more unrefined wags of the screen.  Perhaps "Hook, Line and Sinker" is the funniest of their series.  I think so.

Here they are discovered riding out Hollywood Boulevard on a tandem.  Overtaken by a motorcycle policeman, they are busily engaged selling the officer a little life insurance when a pretty motorist moves into the picture.  She is in tears.  A long deserted hotel belonging to her mother is being reopened and she is to be forced to leave her home and assist in the rehabilitation of the remote inn.  Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Wheeler agree they will accompany her and, once inside the dusty lobby, they set upon a campaign of publicity designed to attract the idle wealthy.  Now that matters are proceeding with dispatch, two competing gangs of underworld thugs take up quarters in the hotel.  Each gang plans to rob the office safe and make a getaway with the expensive jewels of the guests.

That is a very ample suggestion of the plot, but of course that tells nothing of the mad, idiotic movements of the two leading men.  Of its kind, the picture is exceptional.  And the heroine, Miss Dorothy Lee, continues to be one of the most attractive young women of the screen.  Miss Howland, in a boisterous, rampant role as a none too careful mother, is in every way equal to the demands made upon her.