Love and Hisses: A Frantic Mess of 1930s Comedy

Is this actually worth the time?

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.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Love and Hisses (1934) through its definitive frames.

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? 🙄

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Love and Hisses (1934) through its definitive frames.

Some weirdly specific stuff

• The way they just ignore the step-sibling thing is honestly impressive. It’s like the script writer just decided that particular complication was too much work to deal with.
• The pacing is frantic. I swear someone was holding a stopwatch to make sure nobody stopped to think about what they were actually doing.
• I’m still trying to figure out why the father of the sweetheart is so willing to just go along with this. Is he just bored?

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.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Love and Hisses (1934) through its definitive frames.

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.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Love and Hisses (1934) through its definitive frames.

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. 🎥