Not so bright, either

Another of the movies that I watched off my DVR because it's available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive collection is Not So Dumb.

Elliott Nugent plays Gordy Smith, a man in the jewelry design business who's set to enter merger talks with wealthy Charles Forbes (William Holden, not the one who would go on to star in movies like Sunset Blvd., of course). Gordy has a fiancée in Dulcy Parker (Marion Davies), and she decides that the way to help the merger go ahead is to host one of those big weekend-long parties that the upper class seemed to host in early talkies.

Dulcy has more ideas than just trying to help the business deal along. Mr. Forbes has a wife (Julia Faye) and daughter Angela (Sally Starr). Dulcy has invited another guest, scenarist Vincent Leach (Franklin Pangborn), and Dulcy plans to play matchmaker for Vincent and Angela. This, even though Dulcy's own brother Bill (Raymond Hackett), whom Dulcy keeps calling "Willie" is in love with Angela. Rounding out the gusts is Skylar Van Dyke (Donald Ogden Stewart, the screenwriter of The Philadelphia Story among other things, in a rare acting role), a wealthy man who seems to be interested in Mrs. Forbes.

Unfortunately, Dulcy is the stereotypical ditz, who seems to keep unwittingly screwing things up. That, and there's a much bigger flaw that she just won't stop talking. If she would just shut up and listen, it would make greasing the skids for the business deal so much easier. It also doesn't help that she's willing to help Angela and Vincent try to escape the party so they can elope, something that Mr. Forbes definitely wouldn't want and which would scupper the merger.

Along the way, there are a lot of twists and turns, such as a bridge game and a billiard game that both go wrong, and a game of "Baffle" (a sort of home-made mystery) that winds up involving the butler, who is also a parolee, which seems to be another of Dulcy's mistakes. But since this is a comedy movie, we know that the right people are going to end up together at the end, and that Gordy's business deal is probably going to be successful.

The problem with the movie is the writing, which has Dulcy be incredibly irritating since she just won't shut up. Marion Davies was not a bad actress at all, and the damage to her reputation from Citizen Kane is really unwarranted. But she's not able to pull off the difficult job of making Dulcy sympathetic. Also not helping is that Holden broadly overacts in his reactions to Dulcy. It's as if we're still watching a silent movie.

One highlight, however, is a scene where Franklin Pangborn does a one-man show version of the scenario he's writing for what's bound to be a hit epic movie. Except that it's not quite a one-man show, as Stewart provides the musical accompaniment, with a series of selections that are appropriate as far as their titles go, if not always quite fitting in terms of tone.

As I said, Not So Dumb is available on DVD, but it's another of those movies that probably ought to be making up part of a box set instead of a standalone.