Feel My Pulse (1928)
Director:
Gregory La Cava
Writers:
Nicholas T. Barrows, George Marion Jr. (titles)
Stars:
Bebe Daniels, Richard Arlen, William Powell
Bebe Daniels' popular Paramount comedies of the 1920s frequently cast the sprightly heroine as a female Douglas Fairbanks, saving the day with equal parts cleverness and physical dexterity. Feel My Pulse is a typically Fairbanksian romp, with Daniels playing a sheltered rich girl who has been convinced (and has convinced herself) that she is suffering from multiple maladies. When Daniels inherits a health sanitarium, she moves in bag and baggage, hoping to cure her many imagined ailments. Actually, all she needs is a good jolt of adventure, excitement, and romance, and this she gets when bootleggers set up shop at the sanitarium. Daniels is so full of vim, vigor and vitality at the end of the film that she's even willing to kiss leading-man Richard Arlen without worrying about catching any germs. Like many of the Daniels' comedies, Feel My Pulse is benefited immeasurably by the roguish villainy of star-in-the-making William Powell.