Affairs of Cappy Ricks (1937)
Article 5720 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-1-2020
Directed by Ralph Staub
Featuring Walter Brennan, Mary Brian, Lyle Talbot
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy

A sea captain returns home to find his family has been seduced by easy living and that he is on the verge of losing a controlling interest in his company. He concocts a scheme to teach his family the value of hard work as well as protecting his control of the company.

There are early hints in this movie that there may be a bit of science fiction content to the proceedings when the main character discovers that one of the doors in his house is self-opening, and there’s some talk of a boat that is so highly automated it only needs a crew of three. If that’s all that had happened in the movie, I would have consigned it to the realms of marginalia, but the discussed boat does make an appearance in the final reel and plays a significant role in the plot, so it qualifies. On its own terms, it’s a mildly amusing comedy, which mostly relies on a series of “the worm turns” type of situations. It’s fun to see Brennan and Talbot, but the whole cast fares well, even if the story is only so-so.