This is what pre code is all about: fun dialogue, wealthy heiress, thin plots and happy endings. Alice White is a howl of fun here. If you don't like this, youlll not like pre code.

Until I saw this movie last night, I'd never even heard of Paul Page who retired from film-making after appearing in a minor role as Jerry Bronson in the Wheeler-Woolsey Kentucky Kernels (1934). Here the dull Page has the male lead opposite super-sexy, rich heiress-running-wild, Alice White, while Myrna Loy likewise shines in the smaller role of villainess, Linda Gregory. Fortunately, Alice and Myrna give the movie sufficient lift to keep the foregone plot afloat – and this despite Eddie Cline's somewhat erratic direction which manages to touch all bases from boring to humdrum to bright, from static long takes to sweeping tracking shots, and from dull close-ups to swift, scenic cut-ups. Fortunately, we can't cast any aspersions at all on Sid Hickox's moody photography. And as for the musical collaboration between music director Erno Rapee and orchestra conductor Leo F. Forbstein, all we can say is "Wow! Wow! Wow!" In fact, I've never heard better from the Vitaphone Orchestra. This magnificently recorded, full-blooded music run-out alone makes the Warner Archive DVD an absolute must-buy! Just don't forget to leave the DVD running when "The End" title blacks out. Thank you, Warner Archive! Thank you!

"The Naughty Flirt" is a delightful period piece that evokes the (relatively) care-free life many of the very rich maintained even in aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash.Alice White plays the spoiled socialite Miss Katherine 'Kay' Elliott and does a very charming comic turn. This is a Pre-Code film in which the figures of all the female beauties are provocatively shown off in revealing attire in the party scenes. While the sex - including a somewhat surprising spanking scene - is played up, the prohibition age drinking is can only be suggested.The film starts with a gay gang of young socialites in the back of a Police Paddy Wagon headed to the police station to be booked on creating a public nuisance. It seems pretty obvious they've all been drinking as well as dancing at a riotous rooftop party.White as Kay is quite the unflappable flapper, a Daddy's girl with an income of $100,000 a year. Imagine what that could buy in 1931! She's been kicked out of every fine private school her father could get her into and is the dedicated decadent until her world is turned around by a straight-laced country-boy-turned lawyer who happens to work for her Dad's firm.It's a classic case of opposites attract - with a dash of Taming of the Shrew. The two are instantly drawn to each other starting when the lawyer, Alan Ward (Paul Page), - studiously attending a session of night court at the police station - first lays eyes on the naughty platinum blonde.Their romance is tested by a scheme masterminded by Linda Gregory (Myrna Loy) and her brother Jack (Douglas Gilmore) who wants to marry her for money. These dark characters hope to recover from the loss of their fortune in the stock market crash.There are also trust issues as regular guy Alan attempts to gage the loyalty of this 'belle of the ball' while taking stock of her seemingly countless admirers.I saw this on TCM which has a very high technical standard. I'm always impressed at how quickly sound movies progressed. Just four years into the sound era, there's a scene with a wax cylinder Dictaphone in which we listen in as White puts on headphones and hears the recording of Alan speaking for dictation and then get sidetracked into another far more personal conversation with a friend drops into his office unexpectedly. The sound is played back in the scratchy Dictaphone mode - differentiating it from the regular sound.This is a fun and funny story, providing a glimpse into a fascinating age (especially if you were rich) where Jazz Age attitudes intersected with an elite American Anglophile culture.

In this entertaining film, Alice White plays cute, perky, flirty, well-to-do blonde Kay - throwing a party in honor of her annual expulsion from finishing school, she dances, plays the ukulele, bats her eyelashes, and gets thrown in the paddy wagon along with her circle of wild chums. And that's just the start of this story! While at court she meets handsome young lawyer Alan Ward (Paul Page), who by coincidence works for her daddy's law firm. She falls for him big-time, then pursues him like crazy - but no go from his side, though he seemed to like her from the get-go, I guess she's too much of a flirt for our serious young law man. But as one friend says of her "When Kay Elliott starts after a man - she never misses!". So - seducing him after she tries to snag him via the "Cinderella Dance" (girls throw in one shoe on the dance floor, guys pile on top of each other in attempt to find the shoe of their fave gal and get her for "dancing and dinner" later) it seems to be working. But man crazy Kay is currently engaged, by her own count, to "six or seven men"; Alan, tired of her flirtations, puts her over his knee and gives her a spanking (yeah, you read that right). She decides to change her ways and comes to work as his secretary. Okey-dokey. Meanwhile, Two chums, a brother and sister duo (the sister, quite well played by Myrna Loy), make plans to break up Kay and Alan for their own greed - to get Kay (and her $5,000,000) for the brother.This is a lively romp of a film mostly good because of Alice White, who gives an engaging, fun-to-watch performance. She is more cute, with her spit curls, big eyes, and pouty mouth, than a good actress but her acting does run circles around that of her co-star, Paul Page, NOT much of an actor, I must say. I am a fan of Myrna Loy, but this film is *completely* stolen by Alice White. Quite enjoyable, light fun.