Twitchell's toothpaste is in an uproar....There's a new flavor in town, and it's dropping Twitchell's sales like gangbusters. The reason? The breath freshener is flavored with cocktails! Yes, you can get rid of the onion smell from your morning omelet by covering it up with the smell of various cocktails. Prohibition is over, so anything goes, I guess, and guess who the sales lady is: Old man Twitchell's own daughter (Joan Blondell) who is furious with papa for not giving her a job. The old sexist (Grant Mitchell) doesn't believe that women belong in business, and Joan is out to prove dad wrong. While on the road, she meets Twitchell salesman William Gargan who is her rival by day, but after 8, business no longer matters, well so they tell each other.
Then, there's drug store owner Glenda Farrell who earlier turned down the cocktail toothpaste and finds that Twitchell's is collecting dust on her shelves. It all culminates in Chicago at the latest drug store convention where rivals Blondell and Farrell go to to toe over Gargan with wacky inventor Hugh Herbert befuddled over all the toothpaste intrigue going on underneath his "woo-woo" spouting lips. Behind the scenes, Mrs. Twitchell (a delightful Ruth Donnelly making more out of a small part than what was originally there) encourages her daughter to give Mitchell the run for his money, something she's wanted to do for years.
Of course, alcoholic toothpaste is in the minds of the writers, certainly not reality, and this really pushes the new production code to its maximum level. Still, even with the code on the script's tail, it's pretty raunchy stuff, with some hidden sexual innuendo adding a lot of fun to the fast-moving script. It's also fun, in this pre-women's lib era, to watch Blondell winning at every turn, and to see smug Gargan getting his from both the women in his life. Some fun character performances from Al Shean, Bert Roach, and an unbilled Hattie McDaniel add to the sparkle of this post-code comedy that almost seems like pre-code with a few elements that slipped by Mr. Hays' big ears.
Then, there's drug store owner Glenda Farrell who earlier turned down the cocktail toothpaste and finds that Twitchell's is collecting dust on her shelves. It all culminates in Chicago at the latest drug store convention where rivals Blondell and Farrell go to to toe over Gargan with wacky inventor Hugh Herbert befuddled over all the toothpaste intrigue going on underneath his "woo-woo" spouting lips. Behind the scenes, Mrs. Twitchell (a delightful Ruth Donnelly making more out of a small part than what was originally there) encourages her daughter to give Mitchell the run for his money, something she's wanted to do for years.
Of course, alcoholic toothpaste is in the minds of the writers, certainly not reality, and this really pushes the new production code to its maximum level. Still, even with the code on the script's tail, it's pretty raunchy stuff, with some hidden sexual innuendo adding a lot of fun to the fast-moving script. It's also fun, in this pre-women's lib era, to watch Blondell winning at every turn, and to see smug Gargan getting his from both the women in his life. Some fun character performances from Al Shean, Bert Roach, and an unbilled Hattie McDaniel add to the sparkle of this post-code comedy that almost seems like pre-code with a few elements that slipped by Mr. Hays' big ears.