IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE starts well, with a car chase and some flirty pre-code glimpses of Louise Brooks' legs, after which the film establishes itself as an early screwball comedy. Rich soap-maker Eugene Pallatte pays his secretary Carole Lombard to make his ne'er-do-well son to fall in love with her, so she can convince him to make something of himself in the world.
This was no doubt heading for the secretary actually falling for the lad, but I never got to find out. I had misjudged my wakefulness and drifted off about 15 minutes into the picture. When I woke up, it was to find that my copy of the film had some awful hiss and other audio problems which made viewing it very uncomfortable. (This was a Usenet find, and not up to the usual quality of TCM-sourced Usenet offerings.)
It's a shame, as IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE looked like fun, does not seem to be on DVD, and I'd only recently learned of Louise Brooks' sound era career in minor roles.
