THE PERFECT CLUE

US, 1935, 64 minutes, Black and white.
David Manners, Richard Skeats Gallagher, Dorothy Libaire, Betty Blythe, William P.Carleton.
Directed by Robert Vignola.

The Perfect Clue is the slightest of romantic comedies from the mid 1930s. An heiress, Dorothy Lilbaire, is upset by her father marrying again. This is announced at a party and she walks out, suggesting to an alcoholic older friend that they go off to be married. On the train to Buffalo, she gets cold feet, gets off the train, looks for a lift to Albany and teams up with a young man, recently out of prison, framed by his colleagues at the bank for stealing. He decides to steal from her and strands her – returning very soon because he could not rob a woman.

Some on the road echoes of It Happened One Night.

They travel around the countryside in his car, she feigning an ankle injury but then found out, he declaring she is a scatterbrained, she calling him Jesse James. When they get to the town, they find that Jesse James’s partner has been shot by fellow criminals.

The complication of the plot is that her father comes looking for her, the police are after Jesse James and also after her as an accessory. After a lot complications and touches of screwball comedy talk and argument, everything turns out romantically happily at the end.