mark.waltz Whether leading a jury to find in favor of his client, getting the big scoop or telling John Barrymore that he sagged like an old woman, Lee Tracy was always someone to keep your eye on, whether you are the D.A. trying his case, the victim of his tell all journalism or even just as a member of the audience. You don't want to miss a minute of anything he says, because it seems so fresh like it wasn't written, plain spoken as only a big city smart Aleck like Tracy could say. Here, he calls boozy doctor Frank Morgan a "drunken bat", and it seems to roll off his lips as if he was the one who thought of it. If Tracy didn't ad-lib, then he must have had writers clamoring to write to him, because his delivery is superb.Tracy's character here is an attorney commonly referred to as an "ambulance chaser", and along with Morgan, his racket includes veteran trickster Charles Butterworth who gets settlements for accidents he sets up. He meets his match in the wise to his ways Madge Evans who sets him up to bring him down, getting the way information from a drunk Morgan. This leads to a confrontation where Tracy blames him for the leaks, leading to tragic consequences and tearing Evans up for her part in it. It only briefly sinks to melodrama, finding its best moments when it is comic. One of Tracy's clients is the newly widowed Greta Meyer who upsets his plans by planning to get married days afterward. "He was an old miser", Meyer says matter of factly as fiancée Herman Bing comes in. This script is right on target, even getting a dig in at Hitler, showing that the Hollywood propaganda machine was ready even just as Nazi Germany was rising. Sometimes a great film doesn't have to be excellent. It just has to have the spark to immediately gain and keep your interest.

bkoganbing Seeing The Nuisance for the first time cured me of at least one illusion I had. That Walter Matthau in his Oscar winning performance as Whiplash Willie Gingrich had created something original. Billy Wilder when he did The Fortune Cookie must have seen this undeservedly forgotten MGM film with Lee Tracy in the title role.In fact I'll bet Matthau probably clerked in Tracy's office before taking the bar and learned everything well. Tracy is the shyster lawyer that shyster lawyers make jokes about. But he's cleaning out the insurance companies and in those Depression years they've decided to do something about it.What they've done is hire Madge Evans, a female PI to fake an accident and become a Tracy client. But as things go in these films of course she falls for the guy.Some other familiar faces populate the cast. Most familiar are Frank Morgan as an alcoholic doctor who treats Tracy like a son and helps Tracy with his fraudulent injury cases. And also there's the ever droll Charles Butterworth who makes a living faking being hit by automobiles for insurance settlements. He's running out of big cities to pull that racket.Still if you watch The Nuisance you'll know what inspired Billy Wilder in The Fortune Cookie.

Bob_Rohrer Lee Tracy is perfect as an ambulance chaser who plagues a streetcar company with phony lawsuits that prove so successful, the business strikes back with an undercover beauty (Madge Evans).This sharply written comedy/drama takes a tragic turn at one point, and the Tracy-Evans relationship gets convincingly intense toward the end when one of the characters runs afoul of the law."The Nuisance" boasts strong performances from Tracy and Evans, with standout support from Frank Morgan as an alcoholic doctor who's Tracy's partner in unethical behavior and from Charles Butterworth as a con man.Strongly recommended to all Tracy fans.

jaykay-10 Versatility is an attribute in any performer, but so is doing one thing exceptionally well. Perhaps if Lee Tracy's screen career had not met a premature, unfortunate ending, he and his public would have felt a need for him to play something other than the kind of role which he performed with such natural ease and remarkable skill: the brash, fast-talking, wisecracking, slithery, finger-jabbing, opportunistic, less than trustworthy (to put it mildly) rascal. As a tour de force, this picture ranks with his best, even if there may be more twists and turns of the plot than the story requires. Though Frank Morgan's poignant portrayal of an alcoholic doctor is not an altogether comfortable fit here, and Tracy's explanation of his loss of youthful ideals too pat to be convincing, the movie is consistently entertaining, with fine performances by all the supporting players aiding and abetting another memorable star turn by Lee Tracy.