Ruth Donnelly Movies

Ruth Chatterton tears up the screen in this fast-paced, lusty comedy. Alison Drake is an automobile magnate, a hard-nosed, hardboiled business woman making dozens of important decisions a day. In her private life, however, she is passionate and bold in her pursuit of male companionship, which she frequently finds among the ranks of her own employees and executives; the problem is that these men can't abide the fact that back at work, she's all business again; and she keeps having to get their long, mopey faces out of her presence by transferring them elsewhere. Then she meets Jim Thorne (George Brent), a gifted engineer who is attracted to Drake but isn't a callow, cowtowing yes-man, and isn't awed by her millions. After a few awkward encounters, they find a balance in their lives together, or so she thinks, until he proposes marriage. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Hard to Handle stars James Cagney as a fast-talking promoter who pounces upon every current fad and foible to make a quick buck. He promotes marathon dances (where spectators feel cheated because no one drops dead), crash diets, reducing creams and treasure contests, finagling his way into the confidence of high rollers and money men. In a cute "inside" joke harking back to a choice Cagney moment in The Public Enemy, our hero at one point takes up the promotion of grapefruits! Like most conners, Cagney isn't aware when he is being conned himself, and he falls victim to his marathon-dance business partner, who absconds with the winnings. The contest winner is pretty Mary Brian, whose mother (Ruth Donnelly) tries to extract payment by forcing Cagney to marry her daughter. He does, but only after eight reels of high-pressure wheeling and dealing. In the tradition of Jimmy Cagney's other early-1930s, Hard to Handle is socked over by the energetic insouciance of its star. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Blondell, borrowed for the occasion from Warner Bros., earned top-billing in this delightful Hollywood parable, but the real star is of course Stuart Erwin as the irrepressible grocery clerk Merton Gill. Paramount screenwriters Saul Mintz, Walter De Leon and Arthur Kober based their witty scenario on Henry Leon Wilson's 1922 novel Merton of the Movies, the 1923 Broadway play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, and the 1924 Famous Players silent version starring Glenn Hunter. By 1932, the story was indeed well-known: Aspiring to become a famous screen cowboy, small-town delivery boy Merton Gill arrives in Hollywood, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and complete with a diploma from the National Correspondence Academy of Acting. Crashing the gates of Majestic Pictures (read: Paramount), Merton manages to fumble his one line bit in the latest Buck Benson (Dink Templeton) western and is fired on the spot. Unwilling to leave the studio, the hapless thespian survives on leftover scraps from the extra's lunch boxes until discovered by comedy starlet "Flip" Montague (Blondell), who takes pity on him and arranges a meeting with Jeff Baird (Sam Hardy), head of the slapstick comedy unit. Bestowed a new name, Whoop Ryder, Merton is starred in what he assumes to be a serious western melodrama but what in reality is yet another burlesque featuring cross-eyed low comic Ben Turpin. Although a big hit with preview audiences, a humiliated Merton is ready to return to the grocery business when "Flip" persuades him to stay by telling him that he is "darn near perfect." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Blessed Event is one of several early-1930s films inspired by the meteoric rise to fame of gossip columnist Walter Winchell--and like most such films, its title is based on a Winchell tag line. Lee Tracy plays a glib-tongued reporter who is conducting a feud with popular singer Dick Powell (making his film debut). Along the way, Tracy offends a powerful gangster, and in so doing becomes entangled with chorus girl Mary Brian. The film is at its best when parodying commercial radio of the era (notably an inane jingle for "Shapiro Shoes" warbled by Dick Powell). The original Broadway stage version of Blessed Event was written by Manuel Seff and Forrest Wilson--and reportedly inspired by the career of Ruby Keeler, who rose to stardom thanks in part to the patronage of a New York mobster. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An illusionist is performing his astounding tricks when an audience member is killed by another. This mystery chronicles the attempts of the magician to find out whodunit and why. He gives his theories to a police detective who thinks the illusionist is plumb nuts. Still the investigator goes along with the magician's plot and allows him to stage a seance. During the spooky doings, the killer is revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Following the example of his Ziegfeld Follies cohorts Eddie Cantor and W.C. Fields, Ed Wynn tried his luck with the movies in 1927's Rubber Heels. Wynn is cast as would-be detective Amos Wart, bound and determined to retrieve the stolen crown jewels of the beautiful Princess Aline (Thelma Todd). This requires our hero to pose as a crook, enabling him to join a gang of gem thieves. The plot stumbles from one incredible incident to the next, culminating with a wild scene in which Amos, locked in a chest, goes over Niagara Falls. Paid $125,000 for his participation in Rubber Heels, Ed Wynn was so disappointed with the results that he offered to give the money back to Paramount if they'd shelve the film (They didn't, but Wynn knew whereof he spoke: Rubber Heels was a bomb, and Wynn wisely stayed away from films until 1930). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide