A good premise can go a long way toward making a good comedy, but as The Golden Fleecing demonstrates, it is not enough by itself. With Fleecing, the premise is certainly far-fetched and unlikely, but in the right hands it could server to mine a rich load of laughter. Unfortunately, in the hands of director Leslie Fenton and a team of writers that surprisingly includes noted humorist S.J. Perelman, it produces only a smattering of chuckles, with nary a guffaw in sight. The story that has been grafted onto the premise sounds good in theory, but in practice it misses the boat. Set-ups don't pay off as they should, the pacing is askew, jokes too frequently don't find their marks, and attempts at being a bit zany fall flat. To be fair, the blame is not solely with the director and writers. Lew Ayres is utterly miscast in this kind of comic role, giving a performance that strains when it needs to be effortless, and that can only attempt to indicate the kind of comic mania that the role requires. Fleecing needs a very particular kind of personality in the role -- not an actor, but a comic, and Ayres is not the man for the job. Fortunately, the film has Lloyd Nolan turning in a good performance as the mobster and some very performances (in admittedly small parts) by William Demarest, Nat Pendleton and Leon Errol. They can't make Fleecing a good movie, but they give it a little shine.