Old Hutch: Wallace Beery is a total mess in the best way

Is Old Hutch worth your time? Honestly, if you have a soft spot for 1930s character actors who look like they haven’t slept in a week, you’ll probably have a blast. If you need your movies to be sleek, high-budget, or logically sound, you’re going to be annoyed by how much time we spend watching a guy act like a ghost in a creek.

Wallace Beery plays the kind of guy who makes you want to reach through the screen and shake him. He’s the town loafer, the guy everyone makes fun of, but then he finds this tin box full of cash. The way he tries to 'launder' the money by actually getting a job is such a funny, backwards logic. It feels like a scheme a cartoon character would cook up.

There’s this one scene where he tries to scare off some construction workers by dressing up as a ghost. It’s so absurd. It goes on a little longer than it needs to, and you can practically hear the director saying, 'Just keep walking around the shack, Wallace, it’ll be funny.' It’s not quite scary, but it’s definitely weirdly memorable.

The middle part of the movie gets a little bogged down with the romantic subplot between his daughter and some rich college kid. It’s the standard stuff—dances, parties, poetry recitals—but it feels like a different movie entirely from the one where Hutch is sweating bullets over stolen bank serial numbers. It reminded me a bit of the domestic pacing in The Fast Worker, where the personal drama sometimes just stops the main plot dead in its tracks. 🤷‍♂️

When the gangsters finally show up, the movie shifts gears so hard you might get whiplash. The transition from 'bum tries to look busy' to 'bum gets kidnapped by mobsters' is pretty jarring. But watching Beery faint in the front seat during a car chase? That’s gold.

It’s not a perfect film. Sometimes the plot holes are big enough to drive a tractor through. But there’s something genuinely human about a guy who just wants to fish and ends up in the middle of a major police investigation instead. It’s definitely not as bleak as something like Missing, but it’s got its own kind of desperation.

A few quick thoughts:

• The look on Beery’s face when he realizes the banks are checking serial numbers is priceless.
• I really wish we saw more of the chicken coop idea; that was a top-tier lie.
• The ending feels like it was tacked on in five minutes, but I’ll forgive it because it’s so satisfying.

Ultimately, it’s just a weird, little story about a guy who finally manages to do something 'honest'—even if he had to commit a few crimes to get there. It’s a good way to kill an hour if you want something that doesn't try too hard to be profound. 🎣