An amusing flick with a botched ending

Hook, Line, and Sinker (1930)
Starring: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, George Marion, Natalie Moorehead, Jobyna Howland, and Ralf Harolde, and Hugh Herbert
Director: Edward Cline
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of con artists (Wheeler and Woolsey) go straight to help a young heiress (Lee) to turn a rundown hotel into a successful destination for the rich and famous so she can gain independence and avoid an arranged marriage. Their efforts attract the attention of numerous gangsters who want rob the hotel's guests, including a gang operating out of the hotel's secret basement that just happens to be led by the heiress's would-be husband (Harolde).

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" was a box office smash in 1930--it was the top-grossing film for RKO, and may have been the top-grossing film, period. Knowing that, and watching the film in 2021, is a reminder of how tastes change over the decades. I like old movies (as clearly demonstrated by the fact this blog even exists), but I still had a hard time seeing how this film could have been so popular. It's got strong points, and it's fairly funny, but I don't see how it could have set the box office on fire the way it did.

In its favor, it's got plenty of straight-up bawdy humor and even more double entendres. There isn't any one particular bit that sticks out, but the non-stop stream of banter and humorous situations keeps the film moving along at a fast pace. It also manages to make the two clownish heroes the center of all romantic subplots, completely eschewing the usual  "serious" couple that normally carries at least some of those; instead, true love seems to reform the scoundrels here, so they get to clown around and have a romantic happy ending. It's a nice change of pace that no time is wasted on a bland, uninteresting couple.

Unfortunately, this otherwise entertaining movie is dragged by an ending that goes on for entirely too long. Without spoiling too much, the final portion of the film is devoted to a shoot-out between the various gangs trying to rob the hotel safe, with our heroes and their lady friends caught in the middle and trying to fight back. It's the sort of chaotic free-for-all that's been the hallmark of action comedies for decades, but here it goes on for too long. The jokes are funny, but the action feels padded and a climax that was undoubtedly conceived to be equal parts exciting and funny, but it meanders instead of builds in intensity and ends up being tedious and should have ended well before a conclusion is forced with a splash of deus ex machina. (The film does give us the nicety of a little dénouement, but it doesn't make up for the flabby climax.)

Part of me almost excused the badly executed action of the climax, using the logic that in the 90+ years since "Hook, Like, and Sinker" the flow of action sequences have been worked and reworked and perfected over time... but then I remembered that Edward Cline was co-directing action films back when he was working with Buster Keaton. Films like "Cops" (1922) and "Convict 13" (1920) shows that Cline should have had a better understanding of how to execute comedic and chaotic action climaxes. Therefore, I can only conclude the the ending was just straight--up botched.

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" is one of nine Wheeler & Woolsey vehicles included in the RKO Comedy Classics, Volume One set. While this film has its flaws, other films in the sex more than make up for those in value.