The Nuisance (DVD)

Where others see a streetcar accident, Joe Stevens sees a payday. Where others want to help out, Joe's ready to cash in. He's an ambulance chaser, a bamboozling lawyer who pulls off financial fast ones, sometimes with the help of a tipsy MD who knows how to doctor X-rays, a team of supposed (and well-paid) witnesses and a nimble assistant whose specialty is flopping in front of moving vehicles to stage a bogus accident. But the flimflam may fold when Joe represents a leggy client who has her own sneaky agenda. Working from a Bella and Samuel Spewack (Broadway's Kiss Me, Kate) script spiked with wry observations and under the direction of versatile Jack Conway (A Tale of Two Cities, Libeled Lady), Lee Tracy (Hildy Johnson in Broadway's original The Front Page and slick publicity man "Space" Hanlon in Bombshell) adds Joe to his gallery of brash manipulators. Madge Evans, Frank Morgan and Charles Butterworth join the Pre-Code fun.

• comedy