His Private Secretary

During a time when John Wayne was doing some B westerns and appearing in a few other films for Warner Brothers, he was apparently lent out to an independent outfit called Showmen's Pictures where he was the male lead in a comedy called His Private Secretary.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Granted that the film doesn't exactly have the production values that one would have associated with the major studios and it can't get a better rating from me because of that. Still the performances were not bad and the Duke did a fine job in this one.

John Wayne plays the young playboy son of banker Reginald Barlow and all he has on his mind is chasing women. He's the despair of dear old dad who would like the Duke to just settle down in the family business. When he agrees to come to work, his first assignment is to get some deadbeat to cough up his loan money or foreclose.

Remember this is the Great Depression and a lot of people were in similar circumstances. But in this case the deadbeat is minister Alec B. Francis who has a pretty granddaughter Evelyn Knapp and with the Duke it's always pleasure before business.

Because Knapp doesn't immediately fall for his line and shows a serious side he's not seen in many women, Wayne is really taken with her. I think I need not say more because if you've seen thirties type comedies you know where this is heading.

The interesting thing to speculate is if this film had been the product of one of the major studios and had been given production values and a distribution level commiserate with same, what kind of turn John Wayne's career might have taken.