I don't think Billy's older brother Willie had ever seen one of his much more famous sibling's films, or if he did, he wasn't paying attention. This film is so crudely directed it's almost like he had never seen a film before.
Which of course makes it quite funny.
The Big Sleep's Martha Vickers, heir to a fortune, is dying of a weak heart (or a Mysterious Hollywood Illness) and travels to California to recuperate (or die, anyway) with chaperone Rosemarie Stack. There they meet good doctor Robert Hutton and chancer John Bromfield, who's having an affair with married 'dancer' Eve Miller. (That 'dance' she performs near the beginning is laugh-out-loud funny.)
So Bromfield's plan is to marry Vickers and inherit when she dies, but she soon starts perking up and he needs to take another course of action.
The twist, though very clumsily pulled off, is quite neat, written by Frank Freidberger from a story by Midret Lord.
The print we saw which TPTV had carefully excavated from a land fill site was very blurry and full of amusing end of reel sploshes, which all adds to the fun. Wilder chooses some very odd angles to shoot from:
So it's a crappy load of fun. A Planet Pictures release with an unknown crew.
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