Love in Bloom (1935)

What the studio had the Marx Bros. do (i.e., support a love story between two undeserving leads,) is the job here given to Burns and Allen.

The girl (Dixie Lee) is mostly fine; She’s a spunky, ex-carny with some larceny still in her heart, (but feelings of inferiority); but the boy (Joe Morrison) is strictly bland, flavorless, friend-zone material whom she inexplicably falls for; (you might want to skip the scene every time he sings, unless you suffer from acute vintage celluloid masochism, as I do.)

In the meantime, George Burns (her brother) and Gracie Allen are running from the law and hoping to get her to, somehow, rescue the financially in-trouble carnival.

Too bad for them she hasn’t yet hit the big time in New York City; owes back rent; is going hungry, and is currently sleeping on a bench at Central Park.

This is very nearly a W.C. Fields plot, (someone who certainly knew his way around a carnival,) but not quite.

With J. C. Nugent, Lee Kohlmar and Richard Carle.

Better than Here Comes Cookie (a song which Gracie not only gets to cover this time around, but also played by the calliope, somewhat explaining the title of that other feature,) but not nearly as good as Six of a Kind.