Come Closer, Folks (1936) User Reviews (2)

Don't come any closer, folks.

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 5/10 · 15 March 2005]

Despite a well-deserved Oscar for his performance in 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn', James Dunn is now almost entirely forgotten. Not quite a romantic leading man, not quite a character actor, Dunn was a downmarket version of Lee Tracy (another actor unjustly forgotten). I always enjoy Dunn on screen, but 'Come Closer, Folks' is one of his weaker efforts. A lacklustre script by hack author Aben Kandel combined with catatonic direction by 'Dross' Lederman (an even worse hack than Kandel) manage to scupper this project quite thoroughly.

SLIGHT SPOILERS. Dunn plays a pavement pitchman who brings his keester into Stone City, Pennsylvania ... largely because he's been chased out of everyplace else. He crosses paths with Marian Marsh, cast as the prim daughter of the local department-store magnate. I fondly remember Marsh for her very sexy performance as Trilby in 'Svengali', but a lot of her sex appeal in that film was down to the beautiful wig she wore. In 'Come Closer, Folks', Marsh has much shorter hair, and she makes her first appearance in eyeglasses ... so we know this is going to be one of those movies in which the prim spinster loses her inhibitions when she loses her glasses. Sure enough.

A few familiar character actors are on hand here -- Harry Depp, Herman Bing (more tangle-tongued than usual), Gene Lockhart as Marsh's dyspeptic father -- but offering absolutely nothing that they haven't done better in a dozen better movies. Viewers who recognise these faces from other films will see them do exactly what's expected here ... and nothing more than the expected. One face that was unfamiliar to me here was that of obscure actor George McKay, who gave a fresh turn as a local yokel fleeced by the fast-talking Dunn.

Eventually, Dunn and Marsh take over Lockhart's department store, and -- of course -- they turn it into a going concern. Dunn's character in this movie is a dodgy drifter, so I found it contrived that he would become successful as soon as a woman takes an interest in him. Purely on the strength of James Dunn's forceful personality, and George McKay's performance, I'll rate this movie 5 out of 10.

Get a little closer. Don't be shy..

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 11 May 2021]

No matter how she tries to hide her attractiveness behind a cold looking bun and spectacles, it's obvious that Marian Marsh is a beautiful young lady underneath that disguise. She runs her mother's department store (while her widowed father Gene Lockhart plays golf), constantly worried over slowing business and the presence of a bigger store rival, as well as street vendors outside. We've already met James Dunn as Jim Keene and Wynne Gibson as his assistant Mae, do Marsh's Peggy Woods, selling horrible watches and various other merchandise, and ultimately Dunn ends up in jail because of Marsh's fury. But she feels sorry for him and hires him as a clerk and he turns the store upside down, creating all sorts of phony products to bring in customers. Secretly, she's fallen in love with him, and after Marsh reveals that she's considering selling to rival store owner Wallis Clark, Lockhart, fed up with his daughter's old fashioned ideas, decides to take over, one last ditch effort to keep themselves from going out of business.

It's ironic at this type of film would come out of Columbia in 1936 because, having Frank Capra under contract, they created that sentimental but socially relevant type of movie called Capracorn. Unfortunately, the B films that ripped off this genre failed because they had weak scripts, mostly unbelievable characters, and a real lack of heart in the presentation of the story. This is an example of where the genre fails without the master behind it and his usual group of writers, and as good as the cast is, they are unable to repeat what Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur were doing the same year in "Mr. Deeds goes to Town". Herman Bing gives his usual exaggerated heavily accident performance as one of Clark's sales clerks, amusing in small doses, but annoying when it's on too much. Gibson steals every moment she's on screen, but unfortunately that's not enough to save the film.