6.7/10
Senior Film Conservator

A definitive 6.7/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Love and Hisses remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Look, if you have a soft spot for the kind of frantic, door-slamming comedy that was all the rage in the early 30s, you might get a kick out of Love and Hisses. It moves fast, nobody really talks like a human being, and the whole premise is based on a level of stubbornness that would be deeply annoying in real life. If you hate movies where the entire plot could be solved by just, I don't know, talking to each other for five minutes, you should probably skip this one. It's loud, it's silly, and it definitely doesn't care about making sense.
The whole thing feels like a stage play that someone decided to film while everyone involved was on an extra cup of coffee. The mother is just... honestly, she’s a menace. Locking your own kid in a room until you get a ring on your own finger? That's not a romantic comedy trope; that's just a police matter. But hey, it's a comedy, so we're supposed to laugh at it, right? 🙄
It’s not as dark or weird as something like The Reincarnation of Karma, but it shares that same feeling of being a bit untethered from reality. You can tell they were trying to cram in as many gags as possible, which means the ones that actually work are buried under a pile of ones that just sit there, dead in the water.
There's a scene near the middle where everything gets so jumbled up that I lost track of who was mad at who. It didn't really matter, though. The shouting matches are the point, not the actual story beats. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Girl Crazy, but with a lot less music and a lot more yelling.
Honestly? It’s a messy time. It's not going to change your life, and you'll probably forget the character names before the credits even roll. But if you're in the mood for some vintage nonsense, it’s there for you. Just don't look too closely at the logic. It breaks real fast. 🎥

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