1935 was a big year for Fred MacMurray. After a brief walk on in a movie the previous year, he had featured roles in seven movies, including the lead in this.
This movie about recruits in the Michigan State police is clearly a B effort, Charles Barton's second as director, but it has a typically solid Paramount cast, including Ann Sheridan as MacMurray's love interest, William Frawley as the by-the-book sergeant in charge of the recruits, Guy Standing as the villain, and Dean Jagger, Frank Craven, and Charles C. Wilson. It also has some fine stunt sequences, making it a nice little flick to take the bottom half of a double bill, and showing that MacMurray could be more than someone for a female star to hold hands with. If he seems a little bland here, it's because, as he later noted, no one except Billy Wilder ever called on him to do any acting.
This movie about recruits in the Michigan State police is clearly a B effort, Charles Barton's second as director, but it has a typically solid Paramount cast, including Ann Sheridan as MacMurray's love interest, William Frawley as the by-the-book sergeant in charge of the recruits, Guy Standing as the villain, and Dean Jagger, Frank Craven, and Charles C. Wilson. It also has some fine stunt sequences, making it a nice little flick to take the bottom half of a double bill, and showing that MacMurray could be more than someone for a female star to hold hands with. If he seems a little bland here, it's because, as he later noted, no one except Billy Wilder ever called on him to do any acting.