The Crimson Playgoer

One must give the makers of "Looking for Trouble" credit for originality, at least. To build a movie around the institution of telephone trouble shooting, to drag in a couple of sweet love affairs, a murder, no end of fist-fights, and much mad dashing about, is fairly usual; but to wind it all up by shooting a gun which starts an earthquake which hits the lady villain on the head with a multitude of bricks and induces her to confess her sins, thereby saving the lives of all the nice people, is a stroke of sheer genius. Besides that, Jack Oakie and Spencer Tracy say a lot of funny things.

Oakie, who gets fatter, if not funnier, by the day, is cast as a well-meaning, self-important hick from Azusa, who discovers life and love in Greater Los Angeles. Side-kick Tracy is as tough and tight-lipped as ever, and seems just the kind of trouble-shooter you'd like to have fix your worst enemy's telephone. The pair offset each other nicely, and one is very glad that the girls they fall in love with are room-mates, because double weddings, even by a J.P., are such fun.

The numerous acts of vaudeville get along remarkably well without tap-dancers. As a matter of fact, they get along without almost everything. But it's all in a spirit of good clean fun--or at least good fun.