Irene Franklin Movies

Carnival promoter Fixer Dugan (Lee Tracy) is so named because of his ability to mollify angry customers and process-serving sheriffs. Fixer also works overtime patching up the personal problems of the various carney performers. Along the way, he helps out lion tamer Peggy Shannon, who is in danger of losing her cats to a crooked rival, and Virginia Weidler, the orphaned daughter of the troupe's recently deceased high-wire artist. Bert Granet and Paul Yawitz adapted their screenplay from a story treatment by director H.C. Potter, who otherwise had nothing to do with this RKO programmer. Fixer Dugan was released in England as Double Daring. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Flirting with Fate is one of the lesser Joe E. Brown vehicles for independent producer David L. Loew. Brown is cast as Dixon, the manager of a third-rate vaudeville troupe stranded in a mythical South American country. Completely broke, Dixon hits upon a plan to finance the actors' trip home: he'll take out a huge life insurance policy, then arrange to get himself killed by bandit chieftan Sancho (Leo Carrillo). Unfortunately, Sancho has no interest whatsoever in knocking off our hero, nor can he be insulted into committing the deed. By the final reel, of course, Dixon has decided to go on living-and that's when his life is really in danger, courtesy of a cannister of nitroglycerine. Hungarian-born Steffi Duna provides unintentional laughs as an offkey Latin American songstress. The title Flirting with Fate had previously been used by Douglas Fairbanks in 1917; coincidentally, that film also had a leading character with suicidal notions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A custody battle provides the basis for this melodramatic domestic drama. The case centers around a young girl who has recently inherited a fortune from her deceased grandfather. She had been living with her mother, but now her avaricious father wants the child back. The mother is a performer; the courts deem her an unfit mother and remand the child to her father's custody. The father turns out to be cruel and uncaring. Fortunately, a compassionate juror is able to prove that the father paid his witnesses and the girl is returned to her loving mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Veteran movie leading man Bert Lytell warmed the director's chair for Along Came Love. Irene Hervey plays a shopgirl, while western star Charles Starrett dons civvies in the role of a pediatrician. Through a series of bizarre but credible complications, Hervey's mother (Irene Franklin) is arrested during a raid at a burlesque house, which plot device serves to bring hero and heroine together. All misunderstandings are ironed out within the film's 65-minute time frame, as we all knew they would be. Along Came Love was cowritten by Arthur Caesar, miles away from his Oscar-nominated original story for 1934's Manhattan Melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This upbeat, socially-conscious drama offered viewers a look into the benefits of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a program begun by Roosevelt during the Depression. It tells the tale of two potential juvenile delinquents from the city who end up in a CCC camp. There they are forced to live in rugged, primitive conditions and work hard while maintaining high moral standards. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This musical is adapted from a popular Broadway show written by George M. Cohan. It tells the tale of a team of Broadway dancers. The male partner is a real carouser, yet he is protective of his partner who is madly in love with another. Later she and her lover encounter difficulties, and their show is endangered. To save them all, the partner forsakes his wild ways. Success ensues, the show is saved; the two lovers also get to marry. Songs include: "You're My Favorite One," "On Holiday in My Playroom," "Join the Party," "Let's Get Going," "Ain't He Good Looking?" and "Dancing in the Open." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Marlene Dietrich stars as the noble Domini Enfilden in this third film version of Robert Hichens' 1904 novel. After caring for her dying father, Domini is told by her Mother Superior (Lucille Watson) that she should go to the Algerian desert to rest and seek sanctuary. On her way to the town of Beni-Mora, Domini meets the ill-tempered and mysterious Boris Androvsky (Charles Boyer), a Trappist monk who has forsaken his vows and also seeks the Algerian desert for salvation. Domini is attracted to this moody monk, but continues on. Her desert guide, Batouch (Joseph Schildkraut), takes Domini to a cabaret, where a riot breaks out during a production number. Boris re-appears to rescue her from the trashed club. Domini and Boris fall in love, marry, and travel to the desert for their honeymoon. There the newlyweds encounter a unit of the French Foreign Legion, whose commander, De Trevignac (Alan Marshal), holds a secret to Boris's past. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Myrna Loy plays the glamorous member of a trio of jewel thieves. G-Man Spencer Tracy goes undercover to join the gang when it transports its stolen jewels from Paris to New York. Loy falls in love with Tracy, has a change of heart, and quits the gang. But Tracy arrests her all the same when he recovers the jewels. The girl forgives Tracy when the latter is wounded in a climactic gun battle with the rest of the thieves. Why, oh why, is this thing called Whipsaw? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Perhaps the best of Mascot Pictures' feature-film releases, Ladies Crave Excitement is also one of the fastest 69 minutes ever put on film. Norman Foster and Eddie Nugent play Don and Bob, a pair of ace newsreel cameraman for The March of Events, forever keeping one step ahead of their competition. Swept up in the boys' adventures is thrill-seeking heiress Wilma Howell (Evalyn Knapp), who eventually proves to be a valuable member of the team. After a dizzying series of hairbreadth escapes, Don once again scoops his rivals by rounding up a gang of crooks, with the not inconsiderable help of the resourceful Wilma. One interesting aspect of Ladies Crave Excitement is the suggestion that newsreel photographers regularly "stage" events to make things more exciting; in one amusing scene, a storm at sea is re-created on a studio soundstage, as "captain" Christian Rub is doused with bucket after bucket of cold water. Future TV favorites Milburn Stone and Marie Wilson pop up unbilled as a sailor and his date, while perennial Superman villain Herb Vigran appears as a wisecracking photographer. Serving as film editor on Ladies Crave Excitement was director-in-training Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on Lea David Freeman's play Ruby, Lazy River takes place somewhere in the Mississippi River Valley. Jean Parker plays Sarah, a young Bayou girl who tries to guide three ex-convicts to moral redemption. Two of Sarah's charges, Gabby (Ted Healy) and Tiny (Nat Pendleton), seem to be beyond help, but there's still hope for Bill Drexel (Robert Young) a wealthy young man who's taken the wrong path in life. All three men prove that their hearts are in the right place by robbing the safe of crooked riverboat owner Sam Kee (C. Henry Gordon) then turn the money over to a needy widow. Producer Lucien Hubbard's screenplay manages to work in an alien-smuggling angle which jars with the rest of the picture -- and also artificially bloats the film's running time to 75 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Four courageous college graduates become heroes when they successfully complete a 15-hour coast-to-coast plane flight. Alas, things don't go so well for the foursome when they return to earth to seek out employment. Chris Thring (Charles Farrell) has a particularly rough time of it, but his sweetheart Catherine Furness (Janet Gaynor) remains faithful through thick and thin. Trouble brews in the form of Chris and Catherine's mutual friends Mack McGowan (James Dunn) and Madge Rountree (Ginger Rogers): Catherine thinks Chris is in love with Madge, while Mack falls in love with Chris? and on and on it goes. Shirley Temple shows up in the early scenes as a plane passenger, while that grand old trouper Gustav von Seyfertitz sheds his usual villainous image as the film's avuncular last-minute problem-solver. Change of Heart is based on a novel by Kathleen Norris. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this sudsy hospital melodrama, a married nurse finds herself falling in love with one of two surgeons when her husband goes mad and needs an operation. One of the surgeons regards his pursuit a lark, while the other harbors genuine affections for the nurse. At first, she is attracted to the cad, but after her husband follows the suggestion of another insane patient and dives out of a window to his death, she seeks consolation in the arms of the other surgeon. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Six writers were involved in the RKO Radio musical comedy Strictly Dynamite; ironically, the plot concerns a radio comedian who's running out of material. Jimmy Durante stars as Maxie Slaight, an airwaves mirthmaker who hires young Nick Montgomery (Norman Foster) as his new gag man. Before he knows what's happening, Maxie becomes enmeshed in a romantic triangle involving Nick, Nick's wife Sylvia (Marian Nixon), and Maxie's radio co-star Vera (Lupe Velez). The film's five songs are performed con brio by Durante, Velez, and the four Mills Brothers. Adapted from an unproduced play by the usually reliable Ralph Spence, Strictly Dynamite wasn't sufficiently successful to boost Jimmy Durante's flagging movie career, and within a year or so he'd be back on Broadway in Jumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi