The Passionate Plumber is a 1932

1932 in film

-Events:*Cary Grant's film career begins*Katharine Hepburn's film career begins*Shirley Temple's film career begins*Disney released Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon in three-strip Technicolor film.*Santa, first sound film made in Mexico released....

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed by Edward Sedgwick

Edward Sedgwick

Edward Sedgwick was a film director, writer, actor and producer.-Biography:He was born in Galveston, Texas, the son of Edward Sedgwick, Sr. and Josephine Walker, both stage actors. Young Edward Sedgwick joined his show business family as one of the Five Sedgwicks, a vaudeville act...

. The screenplay by Laurence E. Johnson and Ralph Spence

Ralph Spence

Ralph Spence was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 121 films between 1912 and 1946.He was born in Key West, Florida and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles from a heart attack.-Selected filmography:...

 is based on the play Dans sa candeur naïve by Jacques Deval. It is the second screen adaptation of the play, following the 1928 silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 The Cardboard Lover. It later was remade in 1942 as Her Cardboard Lover

Her Cardboard Lover

Her Cardboard Lover is a 1942 American comedy film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Jacques Deval, John Collier, Anthony Veiller, and William H. Wright is based on the English translation of Deval's play Dans sa candeur naïve by Valerie Wyngate and P.G. Wodehouse...

.

Plot

Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 plumber

Plumber

A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...

 Elmer Tuttle is enlisted by socialite

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 Patricia Alden to help make her lover Tony Lagorce jealous. With the help of his friend Julius J. McCracken and through the high society contacts he has made through Patricia, Elmer hopes to find financing for his latest invention, a pistol with a range-finding light. Comic complications ensue when Elmer's effort to interest a military leader is misconstrued as an assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 attempt.

Cast

• Buster Keaton
  Buster Keaton
  Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
  
   ..... Elmer E. Tuttle
• Jimmy Durante
  Jimmy Durante
  James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
  
   ..... Julius J. McCracken
• Irene Purcell
  Irene Purcell
  Irene Mary Purcell was an American film actress.She notably appeared opposite William Haines in Just a Gigolo and with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in The Passionate Plumber . A French-language version of the latter film, Le Plombier amoureux, was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the same...
  
   ..... Patricia Alden
• Polly Moran
  Polly Moran
  Polly Moran was an American actress and comedian.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started out in vaudeville, and widely toured North America, as well as various other locations that included Europe and South Africa...
  
   ..... Albine
• Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was...
  
   ..... Tony Lagorce

Critical reception

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

observed, "There is some comedy of merit in this flimsy scenario, stretched from a natural two-reel length to fill a full-length spool, and it isn't necessary to gaze beyond the cast to find the source. But the cast and the laughs are constantly obliged to fight the plot and motives; unfortunately the plot wins the battle, contrary to the picture's best interests . . . While Durante and Keaton are cross-firing for laughs the rest is momentarily laid aside, and when the chief laugh grabbers return to the theme, they don't mix. Polly Moran hasn't much to do, which is the picture's biggest disappointment."