The Law and the Lady

Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., the film casts Errol as James Wilson, a kleptomaniac who starts with picking pockets and ends up robbing a bank. Wilson's friend Lawrence Payne (Richard Arlen) inadvertently aids our hero during one of his heists, ending up in deep doo-doo with the law. Before Wilson is able to extricate Payne from his dilemma for the sake of heroine Barbara Tanner (Mary Brian), he pauses long enough to pose as a private eye -- and even gives bellboy Oscar (Stu Erwin) tips on how to spot a crook! If only all of Leon Errol's feature films had been as consistently hilarious as Only Saps Work.

This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors (including Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Schertzinger and Edmund Goulding). The cast features Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, William Powell, Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers, Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin and Nancy Carroll.

Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho outlaws known as the Border Legion. But when the Legion takes Joan Randall prisoner and leaves Cleve to guard her, he realizes that he cannot remain part of an outlaw band and decides to rescue Joan.

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett.

A friend of Dick Bailey is killed by a mysterious assailant, whom Dick suspects to be Stack, who is in league with the crooked sheriff. Out on a spree Dick swears he will marry the first woman he sees, who happens to be Ruth Hammond, sister of his dead friend, arriving to take charge of the Hammond ranch. Revolted by his rough proposal,she fires him as the Hammond foreman and she proceeds to the ranch. Stack informs her he has purchased the ranch for the payment of the back-due taxes, and she relents and rehires Dick and his friends to aid her in her fight against Stack.