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Atlantic Adventure (1935) - Lloyd Nolan, Nancy Caroll, and Harry Langdon

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Paul Pain:


Watch ATLANTIC ADVENTURE

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026085/

Where to begin?  Well, after a long time off, this one was a disappointing one for me to choose to get myself back into reviews.  Let's log on to ATLANTIC ADVENTURE.  On second thought, let's log off and spare our brains the intense struggle.

It's neither terrible nor great.  A newspaper reported has been justifiably fired for being derelict in his inconsiderate boss's unrealistic demands (one of those bosses that expects the worker to be on duty 24/7 and enjoy every second of it).  On a hunch from a cop, the reporter goes to sea and saves his career and saves the life of his sweetheart and his dimwitted coworker.  Sounds like a typical 1930s film, right?

Well, in this case, it's Lloyd Nolan as the reporter Dan Miller, Nancy Caroll as the damsel-in-distress Helen Murdock, and Harry Langdon as the fool-in-distress Snapper McGillicuddy.  They make an interesting team, but they're a team lacking in direction.  Director Albert Rogell's career highlight appears to be directing BUTCH MINDS THE BABY, which isn't saying terribly much.  But, it does everything you expect from a Columbia B picture: a few laughs, a little drama, and an asinine romance.

It's unfair to call Harry's character dimwitted because in this film his character is so stupid it actually is annoying.  Here's what Harry is though: funny.  A smile and a wave, opening his mouth, eating everything in sight, and being a bumbling idiot are the things we expect from Harry.  Sadly, Harry's next real movie role waits until the infamous ZENOBIA in 1939.

The plot of the film is utterly chaotic.  We have this slow build-up in the first half to help us understand the the characters of Dan and Helen and their lack of any chemistry whatsoever as she has made up her mind and is 100% correct in feeling as she does.  Then, in the second half, we get a bunch of new characters and a slam-bang pace to amplify the drama and introduce a new plot element with everything being wound up within the 68 minutes of film reel.  It's too fast, and the fast pace makes the moments of comedic relief utterly annoying.

It was good to see Harry after such a long layoff.  That's where I'll stop for now.  [pie]

Umbrella Sam:
You certainly liked this movie more than I did. For the most part, I found this movie pretty dreadful. The first 15 minutes are basically trying to make you root for the main character by making him lose everything, but in the process all it does is make every character look annoying except for Harry and Lloyd Nolan. And then, Lloyd Nolan spends the rest of the movie making himself look annoying. Constantly tricking his girlfriend for his own benefit when all she wants is to go home while constantly getting angry at Harry for no reason at all, any sympathy you may have had for him completely goes out the window. It’s also not helped by his constant whining about his “hot scoop” that takes forever to amount to anything. There’s way too many characters, too, and they’re introduced with almost no context; by the time the movie was over, I didn’t care enough to put everything together.

How Harry got third billing in this is beyond me. He barely does anything in this movie outside of being yelled at by Lloyd Nolan. Yes, it is kind of amusing seeing him eating everything he sees, and there’s one part where Lloyd Nolan throws a pillow at him that I laughed at, but beyond that, this is one of the few supporting roles from him that I could see being played by anyone else. He literally spends the last act tied up in a closet. For the final trick, they bring in these two drunk guys that Lloyd Nolan spent about 5 seconds with and have them pull the fire alarms. They’re more important to the plot than Harry, and they’re in it even less than he is. Say what you will about HALLELUJAH I’M A BUM (which I actually kind of liked), but at least there, Harry helps move the plot forward in certain scenes. Here, it feels like he was just thrown in at the last minute in an unsuccessful attempt to save this dumpster fire of a movie.

Annoying characters and overly complicated plot made this a huge chore to sit through and unlike A SOLDIER’S PLAYTHING, there’s not enough Harry here to make it worth it. This is a bad movie, even by B movie standards.

Freddie Sanborn:
There’s a scene where Harry is worked over off screen and we hear his realistic moans and cries of pain. Not exactly the kind of thing to put us in a festive mood.

Paul Pain:

--- Quote from: Umbrella Sam on March 11, 2023, 10:46:12 AM ---You certainly liked this movie more than I did.

--- End quote ---

Like I said, I only liked Harry's parts.  It took three sessions to slog through this one.

This is the first time I agreed with the negative IMDB reviews on a film I reviewed.

metaldams:
I’ll get to this one some time this week, never have seen it.  I’m actually looking forward to getting to Zenobia and some of the poverty row features from the forties.

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