With a den of wolves outside his office door, the aging Charles Winninger remains locked inside, that is until a pretty young architect (Miriam Hopkins) innocently gets rid of all the debt collectors who have been waiting for him to make an appearance. She has a letter of introduction (from herself) but unfortunately, as much as he'd like to, he can't hire her. His son (Joel McCrea) who is off on a cruise with his gold-digging fiancée (Leona Maricle) and the man claiming to be her uncle (Eric Rhodes) whom she really loves. When they get back, McCrea finds Hopkins as the absent Winninger's secretary and Broderick Crawford as a bumbling butler and feisty Ella Logan the cook/maid. He has no idea that Winninger is hiding out, hoping that Hopkins will get McCrea to sign a check so he can go ahead with a real estate project he promises Hopkins can design if she carries out her part of the deal.Oh, did I forget to mention that McCrea's practically a tea-totaler, having only one glass of champagne since more than one drink makes him a free-for-all with his checkbook? Revealing this innocently to both Maricle and Hopkins, this sets a scheme up for the two of them to get their hands on his John Hancock. Mixing both champagne and brandy sets McCrea up for a fall, and before long, he's lounging in a tree with Hopkins as the new servants and the gold diggers try to get to McCrea first. Sort of a reverse in screwball comedy since the heroine is usually the heiress, this shows Hopkins at her screwball best and is just another indication how much she resembled fellow former drama queen Constance Bennett who the same year as this was committing ghostly laughs in "Topper".Once again, McCrea shows his versatility, going from studious and serious to a delightfully seemingly sober drunk who still sees two fingers as three and is willing to buy everybody the world. Winninger is a delightful old codger whom you want to see get everything he desires from his son even if his inventions are wackier than Dick Van Dyke's in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". (Wait until you see the machine that helps you sign five checks at a time!) As for Maricle and Rhodes, the only love they seem to really have is the love of the green. Logan and Broderick are delightfully bumbling as the servants, and it is a great rare opportunity to see Logan who would go on to Broadway history as the originator of the Broadway standard "How are Things in Glocca Mora?" in "Finian's Rainbow".Although rather mild entertainment in the screwball comedy genre, "Woman Chases Man" speeds by at a frantic pace at just over 70 minutes. Even if her character does seem at times to be interested purely in McCrea's money, it is her you want to get it, not the obvious Maricle. When it comes to these classic comedy blonde heroines, all their methods of wacky schemes are worth it, even if nothing is sacred!

"Woman Chases Man" is a very pleasant little comedy starring Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea. It begins when Virginia (Hopkins) approaches B.J. Nolan (Charles Winninger) for a job as an architect. He is VERY impressed with her designs but cannot help her--his son, Kenneth (McCrea) controls the family fortune and won't let him have much at all since he's known for throwing away money. So, Virginia comes up with a screwy idea--that B.J. should hide and they'll pretend that he's in Chicago on some big business deal and she'll entertain Kenneth when he arrives with his friends. However, things don't go well at all at first, as the friends Virginia has hired to pretend to be servants are idiots. Why did she hire them? Because B.J. has squandered the money Kenneth allotted him. It sounds very complicated--but turns out to be a decent little romantic screwball comedy. While I am not a huge fan of Hopkins, in this sort of film she seemed to be in her element. Cute and worth seeing. My only two complaints are small: sometimes the actors talk too fast and I HATE the fainting woman cliché--and this film uses it several times.

Woman (Miriam Hopkins as Virginia) chases Man (Joel McCrea as Kenneth) for father (Charles Winninger as B.J.). Woman wants to get Man to invest some of deceased mother's money in father's business venture; but, father is notorious for losing money on hair-brained schemes. Little does anyone know, but real evil schemers are posing as Man's best friends in order to steal his fortune...The production looks engaging, but the story fails to engage. The players don't play drunk well. Notable as Broderick Crawford's first appearance - as gopher "Hunk"; other than running errands, Mr. Crawford gets pinned to the floor by Mr. McCrea. *** Woman Chases Man (4/28/37) John G. Blystone ~ Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Charles Winninger, Broderick Crawford

I'm not sure why this film doesn't work. It has everything I love about screwball comedies in it, and the wonderful Joel McCrea is gorgeous.Where does it go wrong? I'm not quite as knocked out by Preston Sturges as the rest of the world because I think he's too prone to pointlessly noisy madcap chase scenes, and more often that not his endings suck a lot, but Preston Sturges' screwballs really work (apart from the chases and the endings) and this film doesn't. The difference, then, must be script. Sturges' scripts are superb, glittering things, that you just want to eat with a spoon, and Woman Chases Man is a fairly charming film with a lifeless script.