Movies Till Dawn: The Saturday Morning Strange – “Fight for Your Lady” (1937)

American opera singer John Boles (Colin Clive’s pal/one-time rival in the 1931 “Frankenstein”) decides that the best way to get over being jilted by his fiancée (Margot Grahame) – who left him for wrestler Gordon Jones (!) – is to pursue Ida Lupino, a Hungarian ventriloquist (!!) whose own fiancé (Astaire-Rogers co-star Erik Rhodes) has a reputation for murdering her would-be suitors (add your own exclamation points). Frantic and absurdly over-plotted comedy is best enjoyed as a vehicle for comedian Jack Oakie, whose snappy patter and weapons-grade double take is the high point of the picture. The script – co-written by, among others, gag scribe Ernest Pagano and future Oscar winner Harry Segall, who wrote the source material for “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” and “Heaven Can Wait,” with story co-credited to Jean Negulesco (“Johnny Belinda”) – appears to spoof the leaps in logic inherent to light musical comedy, but in doing so, creates its own bizarre vortex of impossible coincidences and contrivances: I could try to explain to you how Oakie goes from betting against his own wrestler to joining Boles’ inner circle by nursing him back to health through calisthenics (this after stealing his coat and forcing Grahame to call off their wedding) and ending up in drag, but I have a feeling that you won’t believe it. The supporting cast is thick with professional scene-stealers, including Billy Gilbert (the voice of Sneezy in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”), Paul Guilfoyle (not the “CSI” actor, but the former Broadway performer playing against his usual criminal casting as a boozy journalist), frequent Harold Lloyd co-star Brooks Benedict and Abbott and Costello cohort Bobby Barnes (who co-starred with Jones on their TV series); Frank Loesser provided the lyrics for Lupino’s surreal duet with her dummy. Warner Archive’s MOD is full-screen.