The Spear family is very well respected and run a department store. However, the very conservative father (Berton Churchill) and his oldest son, Johnny (Reginald Denny) are worried, as the black sheep of the family, Tony (Robert Young) has just blown into town. He's nothing like his brother and father. Instead of loving business and fitting into high society, Tony is a fun-loving free spirit. And, how is this going to affect Josephine (Evelyn Venable)...the woman who is supposed to marry Johnny? After all, she thinks Tony is wonderful! But is he just too much of a free spirit?This film was distributed by MGM but was made by Hal Roach Studios. In the mid-1930s, the studio wanted to get away from comedy shorts and begin making full-length film...such as this one and the longer Laurel & Hardy flicks.It did seem odd to me casting the very British and proper Denny as the brother of American accented Robert Young.As for the story, some times Robert Young and the other bohemians try a bit too hard in the film, so if you're looking for subtlety you won't see it here! Overall, an interesting idea for a film that just doesn't come together very well. Watchable but not much more.

Mighty M-G-M had an agreement with Hal Roach Studios in the 1930s to distribute the Roach product. Occasionally, they also made a special deal. This is one such deal, for in this instance, M-G-M not only lent Robert Young to Roach, but actually agreed to pay all production costs. When Roach delivered the finished film to M-G-M, Leo the Lion then actually purchased the resulting movie outright. Certainly by Roach standards, it's a very lavish production with huge sets and a cast list as a long as a freight train. As M-G-M was paying for it, Roach shot the works! It's a pity he didn't spend a bit more money on the script and also replace Sam Taylor as the director. Normally, I would have agreed that Taylor was an excellent choice, as I thoroughly enjoyed The Cat's-Paw (1934) and at least eighteen of the director's previous twenty movies starting with Safety Last (1923). Alas, Taylor couldn't control Robert Young (whose acting as the Gumdrop Kid is way over the top). The screenplay treats both Venable (the Gumdrop Girl) and Frank Craven (the Cravin') far too indulgently too. As a result, the movie is top-heavy with Young and somewhat undependable with Venable. On the other hand, the movie also comes to a complete halt to allow Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill and Forrester Harvey their days in front of the camera too. It's a pity director Sam Taylor was mostly unable to escape from underneath all these over-sized production values and similar relics of goodwill. Harsh film editing may have saved the day! Thanks to Berton Churchill and Reginald Denny the movie still guarantees a few good laughs here and there – but too many gumdrops gum up the works!

Every day can't be Christmas, every at-bat can't be a home run, every movie can't be expected to be an immortal classic. *Vagabond Lady* is solidly amusing fare rather of the screwball comedy mold, making fresh use of familiar Hollywood tropes to send us out of the theater smiling. The secondary and bit parts are handled pitch-perfectly by often-familiar professionals of the era who clearly knew the genre and the tone required for it, and threw themselves into it with pleasure and zest. Reginald Denny came from a family in which both his father and grandmother were Gilbert & Sullivan originals; he seems to have soaked up the family's experience, and his performances frequently show the characteristic deft Gilbertian handling of what might be termed restrained absurdity. His talent for this is well displayed in *Vagabond Lady*; his expressions of profound aversion to gumdrops still coax laughs from me as they linger in the memory. Robert Young, though he throws himself fully into his role and does well enough, just doesn't have the right vibes or charisma for it. Evelyn Venable as the leading lady similarly does well enough or even better than well enough, and is radiantly beautiful; but her performance is not well modulated. The production values are on the high side (be ready for rear projections now and then), the script is fine, the show moves right along--you will spend a little over an hour being amused by an unpretentious and workmanlike mid-30s comedy, time spent pleasantly with a few out-loud laughs. Come to it as you'd come to a standard TV situation comedy in one of its better outings, and, afterwards, you'll feel that, in investing time in it, you've done well.

The thought of Robert Young in a madcap comedy is not a pleasant one. His cheerful zaniness always seems forced. Here he is saddled with a deadly plot. Worse, he is asked to play against a real cipher as a leading lady: Evelyn Venable is haunting as Gracia in "Death Takes A Holiday." She would have been better off had she stayed with solemn roles like this, because she appears to have no sense of comedy. She drags through this. She doesn't look pretty, either, though she looks lovely in the elegant "Death Takes A Holiday." The running joke in this is that Young likes gumdrops and Venable's fiancé doesn't. She likes them too. They are both welcome to them..