His Private Secretary (1933)

I found the movie charming. (I missed the opening credits and did not realize John Wayne at age 26 was the lead male star. As the film progressed, I thought--'that sounds like John Wayne' though he barely looked like the John Wayne we all recognize... And sure enough...) It wasn't an oh so terrible movie; it was well paced, fairly coherent and sensible and believable in that 1933 believable way. John Wayne (as Dick Wallace)is something of a carouser and occasional drunk whose banker father--Reginald Barlow as Mr. Wallace--despairs of his son doing anything respectable.Dick Wallace is sent by his father to Somerville to collect a debt from the local preacher, whose daughter--Evelyn Knapp as Marion Hall--he met on the way at a local gas station, only to fall for the daughter....Long story short...boy meets girl, boy greets girl, boy seats girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.... (Like you never heard that before...) But despite the storyline as old as the hills, the movie had charm and was well worth the look see.And the YouTube video was more than passable.

It would be a long time after this before John Wayne exchanged his cowboy hat for a suit and tie, and a horse for a beautiful woman. This low-budgeted comedy is sometimes difficult to watch because of the poor quality, but for the most part, it is fairly entertaining. Wayne plays a wealthy playboy forced by his domineering father (Reginald Barlow) to go to work, and in the process, he meets, falls in love with, and marries the granddaughter of a poor preacher. Pops doesn't want to meet his new daughter-in-law and disowns Wayne, but the wife (pretty Evelyn Knapp) gets the upper hand by going to work for Barlow as his new secretary. Not realizing who she really is, Barlow comes to depend on her, and actually becomes almost a human being when she is around. But what will happen when he learns the truth? Wayne and Knapp are charming, but Barlow's character is melodramatically stereotypical and one dimensional that the plot seems forced.

Grumpy millionaire businessman Mr. Wallace is fed up with his wild son. The young man is out late again, the "girl crazy young squirt." Eventually the wayward son arrives home; the old man corrals him, assigns him to yet another position in his company, and orders him to be on the job at 9:00 a.m.The son, of course, is John Wayne. He doesn't look totally convincing as a prodigal rich kid, but really is hard to resist. His new job is going to be as a bill collector, and he has a hilarious scene practicing in the mirror—wagging his finger and demanding payment. The plot moves fast…the Duke has a kind of girl friend who is an obvious gold digger. He goes outstate to try and collect a debt from a small town minister. The minister's granddaughter (Evalyn Knapp) is quite spirited, very pretty, and is not impressed with Wayne's spoiled overconfidence in his own charms. Naturally, he quickly falls in love with her. Meanwhile, back home, the gold digger is plotting to marry him at her earliest opportunity….In what is a long story compressed into a matter of moments, Knapp winds up married to Wayne and working incognito as his old man's secretary. It goes on from there but never really gels as a convincing story. Evalyn Knapp is really pretty good as the granddaughter—her performance is lively and covers a nice range of emotion and expression. Also, her character has virtually all of the brains in the entire picture. Reginald Barlow is energetic as the often scowling, occasionally crowing millionaire dad. John Wayne is kind of funny…he has a kind of odd charm, even in a role so unsuited to his talents. He seems to be at his best—most natural—in a couple of scenes with a neighborhood kid who eggs him on and helps him out. It's not believable for a minute, partly because everything happens so fast and (often) for so little apparent reason. Enjoyable enough, however, if only for the presence of Wayne and the nice performance by the wonderful Evalyn Knapp.

A young John Wayne out of the saddle and in a light comedy and he does fine as a man called Dick Wallace with a penchant for a pretty face (or pretty legs as the pencil sharpening scene shows!)who encounters his match in a minister's granddaughter. There are some good lines (on being told to keep quiet by the butler when he comes home intoxicated in case he wakes up his father Wayne whispers he will "Let sleeping dads lie")and the film bobs along nicely.Evalyn Knapp who plays the granddaughter is also very winning as the Private Secretary of the title who helps and soothes Dick Wallace's grumpy father. She is pretty and perky and very charming. Very nice ankles too. The other characters are hardly defined but there is a cheeky boy that one would have liked to have seen more of in the film. Not a classic comedy but sweet without being sugary.