Man Hunt (1933)

This is one of those Young Adult movies that RKO tried out in the middle of the 1930s. Here, instead of Ann Shirley, they use Junior Durkin and Charlotte Henry, under the direction of Irving Cummings, with Dorothy Davenport (as "Mrs. Wallace Reid") as Junior's mother.

A year earlier, Edward Le Saint had stolen half a million dollar's worth of jewels from his employer and fled to the town in which this movie is set, taking his daughter, Charlotte Henry, with him. Now a crooked investigator has shown up. In the meantime, Junior Durkin has been fired from yet another job because he is so busy playing detective. He meets Miss Henry and soon they are trying to figure out what is going on.

Although Miss Henry's performance is good, Durkin's is not that interesting; also the pair of them are rather clueless as to what is going on until the deus-ex-machina denouement. Message: stop daydreaming, kids. Buckle down to your jobs and leave the adults to do the real work.