After viewing THE GIRL SAID NO, that's the question that haunted me. Apparently, he had no control over WILLIAM HAINES, who, at thirty years old, is playing a brash and rude college student who thinks he's what every girl should want in a man. He's obnoxious to the point of driving the viewer to exasperation and he's the center of the whole story.
It's rough going for anyone to sit through this dreadful early '30s comedy of ill manners. Others in the cast do what they have to do as competently as possible, but nobody can top the mugging and mincing of Haines at his worst.
The only segment that manages to be downright funny is the ten-minute sequence with MARIE DRESSLER. It's a howl. Too bad the script didn't afford Dressler and Haines other moments like this.
LEILA HYAMS is attractive as "the girl," HENRY ARMETTA is amusingly exasperated as the waiter who foolishly agrees to a prank suggested by Haines, and POLLY MORAN almost makes sense out of a poorly written and directed role as a housemaid.
It's really a total waste of time to watch Haines mugging constantly and thinking he's being irresistibly endearing as a comedian. He's not.
But I have liked him in other films of the "silent" era. But this attempt at comedy is unbearably unfunny.