1.   A late lapse into a mobster subplot seems a last-ditch attempt to energize a story that begins to lose momentum during the first reel.

2.   All seemed delighted but for poor Teddy, who ran screaming from the theater during the first reel--his nerves, no doubt.

3.   But after the first few reels, the pace gears down to become glacially slow and the comedy becomes ponderously serious.

4.   His mother gets knocked off by a wayward truck in the first reel.

5.   The telling scene here occurs in the first reel, when Benjamin finds himself being propositioned by Mrs. Robinson, an old friend of the Braddock family.

6.   They could just haul off and jump during the first reel and save the audience a great deal of trouble.

7.   Winnetka assistant manager Mike Canzoneri guesses that only opening day will be sold out by the time the first reel is ready to roll.