Pursued by Boris Karloff in his breakout role as Frankenstein’s monster the previous year, Mae Clarke plays one of his nightclub’s more charming showgirls in this frugal, pre-Code curiosity. Still a Hollywood neophyte at this point without a luxurious budget, Berkeley works his magic in the film’s primary dance number, including a wanton traveling shot through a tunnel of legs. Rife with infidelity, debauchery and intrigue as well as the stark, awkward charms of early sound films, the Prohibition-era atmosphere is full of funny plot twists and other surprising quirks, such as a young George Raft as one of Clark’s slimy suitors and Clarence Muse as the doorman, an unusually prominent, developed role for a black actor at the time. 

With a beauty pageant as the pretext for intrigue, the spectacle expectations are a bit of a tease in this Busby Berkeley feature with neither music nor dance. Directed between Berkeley’s string of Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland pictures, Fast and Furious is a comic, airy murder mystery featuring a sleuthing married couple, one of three MGM-produced movies capitalizing on the popularity of the Thin Man films. Amid much cattiness and banter, Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern dodge deadly elevator shafts, gangsters and even circus lions in their efforts to uncover the killer amid all of the bathing beauties.