You Said a Mouthful
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Lloyd Bacon
Joe E. Brown
Ginger Rogers
Preston S. Foster
Farina
Harry Gribbon
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Joe Holt, a minor employee of the Armstrong Rubber Goods and Swimming Wear Company, has invented an unsinkable bathing suit. His ambitions make him the butt of practical jokes perpetrated by the other employees, who convince him that Mr. Armstrong, the head of the company, is interested in his invention. On the contrary, Mr. Armstrong will have nothing to do with Joe, so when a lawyer informs him that he has inherited his aunt's fortune, Joe is suspicious. Finally convinced, Joe quits his job, only to find when he arrives in California that his aunt's entire fortune consists of worthless stock. In its place, she has left him to care for Sam Wellington, the son of a servant. Completely broke, Joe and Sam apply for jobs on Catalina Island. Just before the boat leaves, socialite Alice Brandon takes him in hand, announcing that they will stay at the house of Tom Brandon, her father. Alice has mistaken water-fearing Joe for Joe Holt, the marathon swimmer, who is to swim in a race across the Catalina Channel. Joe tries to tell Alice the truth, but she is too busy confessing that she has fallen out of love with Ed Dover, another competitor, to listen and begs Joe to beat Ed for her sake. Joe Holt, the swimmer, meanwhile, has been jailed as an imposter. Sam tries to teach Joe how to swim, but the effort fails until Joe acquires an unsinkable suit. After his attempts to avoid the race fail, Joe dons the suit and swims across the Channel, winning the race by hitching a ride on a shark. His win secures Alice's love.
Director
Lloyd Bacon
Cast
Joe E. Brown
Ginger Rogers
Preston S. Foster
Farina
Harry Gribbon
Edwin Maxwell
Sheila Terry
Walter Walker
Guinn Williams
Oscar Apfel
Bert Morehouse
William Burress
Frank Hagney
Selmer Jackson
Mia Marvin
Harry Seymour
James Eagles
Arthur S. Byron
Anthony Lord
Crew
Cheney Brothers
William B. Dover
Leo F. Forbstein
Harold Kruger
Vernon Lawson
Robert Lord
Don Mair
Bolton Mallory
Owen Marks
Jack Okey
Orry-kelly
William Schurr
Richard Towers
Charles Scott Welbourne
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You Said a Mouthful
In You Said a Mouthful, Brown plays meek office clerk Joe Holt, who's the butt of office jokes about the unsinkable swimsuit he's invented. He's mistaken for a championship swimmer, also named Joe Holt, by heiress Rogers, and ends up competing in a marathon swimming race. It's a typical slapstick Brown vehicle, and pleased his fans and critics alike. Even Mordaunt Hall of the august New York Times warmed to the film, saying it "may be both a trifle too boisterous and slow at times, but it has several genuinely funny sequences and occasional flashes of originality...Joe E. Brown does quite well with this ludicrous role. Ginger Rogers is lively as Alice Brandon." Marguerite Tazelaar of the New York Herald Tribune also had kind words for Rogers: "Ginger Rogers strikes just the right note in her supporting role, giving her ingénue the touch of sophistication and playful spoofing desirable." The World-Telegram critic was more succinct: "Ginger Rogers continues to be one of the most attractive young women on the screen." So was Photoplay: "Ginger Rogers was made for a bathing suit."
Lloyd Bacon, who directed You Said a Mouthful, also directed Rogers's next film, 42nd Street (1933). Bacon apparently saw something special in the young actress and offered her a featured role as "Anytime Annie," a chorus girl so named, another chorine explains, because "She only said 'no' once and that was because she didn't hear the question!" In her autobiography, Rogers credits LeRoy with urging her to accept the role. Once she did, she ran with it, adding clever affectations like a fancy accent and a monocle. The small role launched her career.
As Rogers's career rose, Brown's descended. Although he was one of Hollywood's top box office stars in 1933 and 1936, he left Warner Brothers in the late 1930s, and signed with an independent producer. His films were cheaply made and not very good, and Brown's career never fully recovered. But he did have one more great film role in him, eccentric millionaire Osgood Fielding in Some Like It Hot (1959), who utters the film's iconic last line, "Well, nobody's perfect!"
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Producer: Raymond Griffith
Screenplay: Robert Lord, Bolton Mallory, based on a story by William B. Dover
Cinematography: Richard Towers
Editor: Owen Marks
Art Direction: Jack Okey
Cast: Joe E. Brown (Joe Holt), Ginger Rogers (Alice Brandon), Preston Foster (Ed Dover), Sheila Terry (Cora), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Joe Holt), Farina (Sam), Harry Gribbon (Harry Daniels).
BW-71m.
by Margarita Landazuri
You Said a Mouthful
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The scenes set on Santa Catalina Island were shot there. According to production records in the file on the film in the AMPAS library, shooting lasted thirty-one days and the film was made for a total cost of $223,000.