Chasing Trouble (1940)

Simply Perfect

Excellent but underrated film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Flower deliverer Frankie Darro (as Jimmy O'Brien) has two hobbies. First, he fancies himself a "graphologist" - that means Mr. Darro can determine what kid of a person you are by examining your handwriting. Second, Darro likes to play matchmaker when he meets an attractive single woman. His driver, wide-eyed Mantan Moreland (as Thomas Jefferson), calls Darro "Mr. Cupid". When Darro delivers some flowers to pretty Marjorie Reynolds (as Susie Carey), she rejects them...Darro has determined Ms. Reynolds' suitor to be a pansy. That is explained when we learn the lonely Reynolds has been sending flowers to herself. For reasons left unexplained, Darro shows no sexual interest in Reynolds, and tries to set her up with a suitable mate. Alas, the man Darro picks turns out to be a shady character. Everyone is "Chasing Trouble". The plot leads to murder. Future "Gunsmoke" TV doctor Milburn Stone (as Pat Callahan) has a supporting role.*** Chasing Trouble (1/30/40) Howard Bretherton ~ Frankie Darro, Marjorie Reynolds, Mantan Moreland, Milburn Stone

This is a vehicle for the diminutive Frankie Darro--and that alone says a lot. That's because although Darro had been somewhat of a star in the early to mid-1930s, by 1940 he was pretty much a has-been. Through no fault of his own, he aged and taste changed--so Darro was forced to appear in smaller and smaller pictures for lower and lower quality studios. This film, made by Poverty Row studio, Monogram, is quite a bit removed from Darro's starring days with Warner Brothers and Paramount and the quality of this script is pretty poor. On hand to provide a bit of comic relief is Mantan Moreland in his pre-Charlie Chan days. While Moreland has a few good lines, mostly he just seemed lost here and the film limped to a silly action finale.Darro and Moreland are delivery men for a florist. Despite having this job, however, Darro seems to spend all his time studying graphology--in other words, handwriting analysis. But, like in all bad movies, he's not just interested but 100% obsessed--to such a degree that realism has been chucked out the window. And, in another nod to the anti-realistic approach of this film, Darro manages to get tangled up in a web of spies!! Really. And it's up to these two incredibly dumb nincompoops to save America--God help us! What can I say? The plot was dumb, the dialog ridiculous and the film pretty tough going from start to finish. It's watchable for old B-movie fans like myself, but anyone else would find this tough going. Plus, it's not bad enough to be funny or enjoyable.By the way, Darro and Moreland actually made seven pictures like this for Monogram. Although the characters names differed, the plots were essentially of the same type-starting with "Irish Luck" and ending with "Going Collegiate" only two years later