If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Priscilla Lane does her best to keep afloat in this somewhat entertaining but maddeningly uneven B comedy. Roommate Penny Singleton just wants to get married but office worker Priscilla has ambition: "I'm going to be somebody in this advertising racket and I've got what it takes!"Standing in her way is co-worker Wayne Morris, who takes for granted that she should be more interested in him than in her job, despite the fact that he is both dense and obnoxious. Lane is perky but the relationship between her and Morris never seems believable, and a nice cast of character actors are sorely let down by a mediocre script. Hugh Herbert is fine as the company boss, apparently silly and absent-minded but not as dumb as he seems. Johnnie Davis is his usual blustery self as Singleton's fiancé then husband.Mona Barrie has most of the film's best lines as a successful but cynical ad writer who's had some ups and downs in the racket herself. Taking newcomer Lane under her wing, Barrie invites her to the lake for a weekend party—whether out of kindness or hoping to stir up mischief, it's not quite clear: "Bring your boyfriend along. Give you a chance to compare him with the other insects." Alas, Barrie's role is too small, and what might have been another fun role is simply too dull—young Humphrey Bogart as a playboy radio executive is mildly annoying but little else. This might be Bogie's most boring role ever. Priscilla Lane is very good and her character is smart and likable….but co-star Wayne Morris isn't her match here, and the standard plot just doesn't really work.

There are a few interesting lines here like "All Men are Poligamists" but this comedy between the sexes never really comes off. This cast is a great cast in the whole but prove it takes a script to make a good movie. This one off the Warner Assembly Line proves how big an accident Casablanca was a few years later.Busby Berkley is know for musicals but directing a comedy does not seem to be his bag. The action is uneven. There is a silent slap stick quality to the car chases and train sequences. One RR crossing even looks like the same set used in Abbott & Costello Meet The Keystone Cops.Bogart really isn't much of a comedian coming off as a straight dull man who is a bit of a cad. Think he walked through this role in his sleep. The main actress, Priscilla Lane is an attractive lead, but her comedy skills are not up to other females doing comedy in this era.Overall, other than if your curious about the cast members, this is a movie to avoid. The best thing about it is it is short, obviously made as a B movie to be paired with an A Picture for Double Features.There is a little surprising grabbing by an actor of Lane's posterior in one scene which considering the codes of this era must have gotten through by accident.

Men Are Such Fools (1938) ** (out of 4) Predictable and rather boring melodrama about a hard working secretary (Priscilla Lane) who works her way to the top of her office when she meets and eventually marries an ex-football star (Wayne Morris). Soon afterwards she eventually gives up her career and then problems start to rise as his career takes off. This here is yet another Warner "B" film that has a pretty good cast but in the end it gets ruined due to a rather lackluster screenplay. I really didn't think too highly of anything here, screenplay wise, because I found the comedy to be over the top and silly and then the melodrama was just too predictable. I think the early "dumbness" of the characters really hurt the later drama because it's hard to take either character too serious considering some of the dumb situations they get into early on. When the second half of the film takes place the characters just go through various motions that really make no sense except to lead up to the predictable ending. Lane is charming enough in her role and I think she comes off the best as her wonderful energy is always going strong and this really keeps the film moving. Morris doesn't give the greatest performance but he too is good enough in the role. Humphrey Bogart gets third-billing and plays the boss who falls for Lane. Once again we see Bogie in a rather thankless role that even he can't do too much with. The movie runs a brief 68-minutes but it feels much longer because the screenplay drags in so many places and one can't help but feel they've seen this type of story one time too many.

"Men Are Such Fools" pretty much tries to live up to it's title, as all the male leads are flawed characters, with Wayne Morris heading the list as former college football star turned ad agency wonder boy Jimmy Hall. Right out of the gate he's shown chasing pretty Linda Lawrence (Priscilla Lane), a secretary with dreams of her own about making it big. Working for the Americo Corporation, she has an idea for a product called Fruit Tea; had she waited a couple of decades she might have come up with Snapple.The boss at Americo is played by Hugh Herbert, the "woo woo" actor that I recall being caricatured in one of those Warner Brothers cartoons along with Bogey, Robinson and all the rest. His comical double talk contains some gems if you listen real close, and he even signs off a handwritten note with his woo woo trademark.Although he had already achieved starring roles in some minor films, Humphrey Bogart appears third billed as Henry Galleon, an ad agency exec with an eye for Miss Lawrence. Bogey's portrayal pretty much typifies a playboy and a cad, and his pursuit of Linda even after she marries Hall qualifies him as heal of the year.Jimmy Hall comes across as a self centered boob, usually embarrassing himself into the center of attention where Linda is concerned. His behavior at the Galleon party should have been enough to send Miss Lawrence packing, but somehow they wound up getting hitched. The film's habit of having the romantic leads fall in and out of character kept this viewer somewhat off balance, especially when Mrs. Hall abruptly decides that her comfortable life in the suburbs is no longer enough and leaves her husband because he's not more ambitious! Where did that come from? You'll be reminded by the film how long it took for married movie couples to be shown sleeping together; the first time we see the Hall's as newlyweds, they're in separate beds! By film's finale, the Hall's are reconciled after Linda leads Jimmy on a cross city chase following a radio broadcast in which she pitches her tea for Americo. By this time it's already been at least three years since her first ad proposal, just one more disjointed aspect of the story that came off as a bit odd. Well, if it didn't bother the writers, I guess I won't let it bother me."Men Are Such Fools" is a lighthearted diversion that has it's moments, worth a viewing if you can find it since it's not commercially available. You might have to source it from a private collector, otherwise it might be a long wait to catch it on a cable channel. Fans of Morris and Lane can also find them top billed together in "Love, Honor and Behave" and "Brother Rat"; the busy pair made all three films in 1938.