Hotel Hilarity or Horror
Things are chaotic at the hotel, whilst the magicians are packing up and leaving their convention the morticians are arriving for their's with convention hostesses Faith (Binnie Barnes) and Hope Banner (Joan Blondell) rushed off their feet. To make matters worse is that Hope's boyfriend Tommy (John Howard), a newspaper journalist, is covering the nearby labour negotiations which make life difficult for her and even more difficult when her younger sister Charity (Janet Blair) shows up and has eyes for Tommy. But when a man is murdered and the sisters along with the hotel manager decide to hide the body chaos ensues.
Within minutes I knew exactly how "Three Girls About Town" was going to play out as with in the opening minute we had a visual gag involving magicians, verbal comedy featuring a gloomy and stiff undertaker and a break neck speed which meant you barely had time to laugh before the next gag was being pitched at you. And I was right as for the next 75 minutes "Three Girls About Town" moves faster than a hare being chased by a greyhound with I reckon maybe over 300 gags tossed in to the mix as in the space of a minute it fires of the comedy like some sort of out of control joke machine gun.
The trouble is that 90% of the gags don't actually make you laugh and with so much going on with the gags it goes beyond the intended point of being a screwball comedy to just chaos which isn't as funny as it could have been if only it had taken time to breathe in between each joke. Fortunately what "Three Girls About Town" has got is Joan Blondell, Janet Blair and Binnie Barnes who all bring a certain appeal to the movie which I will be really honest is the movie's saving grace.
What this all boils down to is that "Three Girls About Town" isn't a great screwball comedy and is honestly more miss than hit when it comes to the comedy. But thankfully the cast make up for it and the likeability of the actresses keeps you watching more than the jokes.
