Advice To The Lovelorn is an odd comedy/drama built around the unique talents of Lee Tracy, as a one-time hot-shot reporter whose blowing of the biggest story of the year, coupled with an unbreakable contract, gets him tranferred to the advice column. At first, resentful of the move, he wrecks havoc on his newspaper, but eventually he finds an angle he can live with, and a profitable one at that. The script seems to want to say something about power corrupting those who possess it, but Tracy's personality is so dominating on the screen, and his range in handling dramatic scenes so limited, that the larger point, if there was one, is lost. The movie ends up all about Tracy, and that's not a necessarily a bad thing -- he is an extraordinarily beguiling screen presence here, repulsive yet, in his own way, endearing as a man who learns to turn adversity to his advantage (with, alas, tragic consequences). And the story angle about counterfeiting and trademark abuse is amazingly modern -- indeed, a 2005 Law And Order episode entitled "Fluency," authored by Nick Santora, took this basic plot element and ran with it to its logical conclusion in contemporary terms.
by Bruce Eder
review
