Hold That Blonde!

Hold That Blonde is a 1945 film directed by George Marshall. It stars Eddie Bracken and Veronica Lake. Bracken plays a kleptomaniac who unwittingly becomes involved with a gang of jewel thieves, including Lake, whom he promptly falls in love with, initially unaware of her true occupation. The part was a favorite of Lake's because it represented a change of pace for her ("it's a comedy, rather what Carole Lombard used to do") and she liked working with George Marshall. Officially it is a remake of Paths to Paradise, a 1925 silent comedy starring Raymond Griffith, inasmuch as both are based on the same play, Heart of a Thief by Paul Armstrong. However, the storyline was almost entirely reworked to fit Bracken's nebbish persona, to the extent that the two films have almost nothing in common apart from a few sight gags and a party sequence in which a valuable necklace is the target of the thieves.