Gold Dust Gertie (1931)

• Director
  • Lloyd Bacon
• Writers
  • Len D. Hollister(play "The Wife of the Party")
  • Billy K. Wells(screenplay)
  • Ray Enright(screenplay)
• Stars
  • Winnie Lightner
  • Ole Olsen
  • Chic Johnson

  Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson's final film for Warner Bros. is as much a vehicle for comedienne Winnie Lightner as it is for the venerable vaudeville team. The premise: Gertie (Lightner) marries Harlan (Johnson), then divorces him to marry Guthrie (Olsen), Harlan's partner in a bathing-suit manufacturing business. After Gertie dumps Guthrie, he weds Lucille (Vivian Oakland), while Harlan ties the knot with Lucille's sister Mabel (Dorothy Christy). Several years pass before Gertie re-enters Harlan and Guthrie's lives, demanding back alimony. Since the partners have never informed their henpecking wives that they've been married before, the fur really begins to fly when Lucille and Mabel spot Gertie in a variety of compromising situations with their spouses. The laughs multiply when Gertie pursues her two ex-hubbies on an ocean liner, then descends upon them at a Florida swimsuit convention. Olsen and Johnson seem uncomfortable doing what is essentially Laurel and Hardy material (Ole Olsen even sports a mustache, a la Hardy), but they invest their roles with their usual manic enthusiasm. Gold Dust Gertie winds up with a slapstick speedboat chase, consisting mainly of stock footage from the recently completed Joe E. Brown comedy Top Speed.