Smarty (1934)

Posted on the 23 November 2013 by Thehollywoodrevue

Vicki Wallace (Joan Blondell) gets a real kick out of antagonizing her husband Tony (Warren William).  She does it all in good fun, but one night, she pushes Tony too far and he slaps her.  Vicki is outraged, decides she wants a divorce, and gets her friend Vernon Thorpe (Edward Everett Horton) to handle it for her.  But before the ink on the divorce papers is dry, Vicki marries Vernon.

Vicki can’t resist teasing Vernon, either, and Vernon is starting to see why Tony smacked her.  If he doesn’t like something, Vicki makes a point to do it.  Vernon doesn’t like Vicki to wear revealing clothes so she buys a very revealing evening gown.  He doesn’t like her still being friendly with Tony, so of course she spends plenty of time with him.  When Vernon finally slaps her too, Vicki decides to get back together with Tony.

Considering its cast, I had fairly high hopes for Smarty.  Unfortunately, the plot just is odd and I had a hard time getting into it. It’s really too bad that I didn’t like the plot because the cast had great chemistry and still managed to put on a heck of a show.  I really wish I could see this exact same cast in a different movie because with better material, they could have made a pretty great comedy.