Peach-O-Reno (1931)

Joe and Aggie Bruno are celebrating their silver wedding, but at the party a petty quarrel gets out of control, and they each determine to go to Reno to get a quick divorce. There seem to be plenty of shady lawyers offering quick divorces, and by coincidence they both go to the same firm.

So the two partners are representing them: Wattles and Swift, played by Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, a long-standing double act on stage and film. Robert Woolsey bears a remarkable resemblance to the British comic performer Arthur Askey. To arrange a co-respondent (the guilty party in adultery which was the usual device to get a quick divorce in those days), Wattles dresses in drag and is introduced as Miss Hanover, and she goes out for the evening with Joe Bruno, to a speakeasy run by Wattles and Swift themselves.

Ace Crosby is in town too; he is a gunslinger who has decided to shoot the lawyer who got his former wife a divorce, and that lawyer is Wattles. Crosby is playing blackjack at the speakeasy, and is evidently winning too much for Wattles and Swift to cash in his winnings, so Wattles goes to distract him with her feminine charms.

On a pretext Swift and Miss Hanover do a set piece cabaret dance routine; it is quite extended and very skilful, and I suspect they had done this kind of thing together in Variety theatres many times.

The film title is sometimes quoted as "Peach O'Reno", but my print has hyphens in the title.

HF December 2009

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