Men Are Such Fools (1938)

Directed by Busby Berkeley. Written by Norman Reilly Raine from a story by Faith Baldwin. Warner Bros Production. 70 minutes

Linda (Priscilla Lane) who has good looks, a fine brain and can assert herself, goes from secretary to executive in a New York advertising firm. This is one of the several Busby Berkeley B films that bear no traces of the musical, dancing and quite expensive side of Berkeley. She is in love with former athlete Jimmy (Wayne Morris, a man who looked simpatico but not brainy.) intelligent). She flirts -in a virginal way-with her boss Harvey Bates who is played by Hugh Herbert with all the usual silly and deja-vu Herbertisms; and she is chased after by Humphrey Bogart who is not a gangster or a common man but a businessman. She marries Jimmy, quits her job, has some problems with Jimmy's lack of ambition. They split. She goes back to her old firm; he becomes -meteorically -- an important businessman. They reunite. The (happy) End.

Mostly dull, un-helped by an artificial plot, this movie has one interest, which is its clear Women's Lib aspect, something far from common in films of that period. Morris was a pleasant leading man who learned flying, volunteered in World War II, became a much decorated air-ace. He died young of a heart attack.