George S. Kaufman's satirical 1926 play about a small-town clerk who becomes a top Broadway producer was filmed by First National two years later as a vehicle for mustachioed Jack Mulhall. Mulhall played Peter Jones, a lowly clerk conned into buying a supposedly worthless play by a shady operator (William Demarest, repeating his Broadway role). Falling in love with his blond leading lady (Greta Nissen) along the way, Peter manages to produce a sell-out hit play but finds that fame on the Great White Way is not what it was cracked up to be. Although both Mulhall and Nissen, whom First National had borrowed from Paramount, did fine according to the reviews of the day, The Butter and Egg Man belonged squarely to the caustic William Demarest, a former vaudeville headliner who would go on to win an Academy Award for Jolson Sings Again (1946) and everlasting popularity as "Uncle Charley" in the hit television series My Three Sons.
by Hans J. Wollstein
synopsis
