Winnie Lightner Movies
Actress/comedienne Winnie Lightner (born Winifred Reeves in Greenport, Long Island) appeared in a few early musicals until her retirement in 1934. Before coming to film, she had been popular in Broadway musicals and in vaudeville. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1934
I'll Fix It is a strange bit of goods, condemning the excesses of capitalism while still allowing the chief capitalist to come off as a "good guy." Powerful businessman Bill Grimes (Jack Holt) so loves his kid-brother Bobby (Jimmy Butler) that he uses his influence to manipulate his boy's poor grades. School principal Anne Barry (Mona Barrie) at first resists Grimes' intrusion, but she allows Bobby a second chance upon realizing that Grimes is sincerely interested in the boy's welfare. Alas, Bobby betrays the trust invested in him by cheating in school and on the athletic field. Grimes turns a blind eye to this, forcing Anne and the other teachers to stage a strike, thereby neatly scotching Grimes' latest big-business deal. Despite all this, Anne rushes to Grimes' defense when he is brought up on charges of crookedness! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Holt, Mona Barrie, (more)
Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone) spots Janie in the burleycue chorus line and immediately falls in love with her. When the joint is raided, Tod pays Janie's bail, but she resists his entreaties to become his mistress, promising instead to pay back every cent she owes him "honestly." With Tod's help, Janie is able to secure work in a big-time Broadway musical being staged by Patch Gallegher (Clark Gable), who is certain that the girl is an untalented opportunist and does everything he can to sabotage her audition. When he realizes that the girl "has something," he refuses to admit it but does, grudgingly, hire her for the show. Through a combination of skill and damned hard work, Janie ends up as the star of the show, whereupon Tod, worried that he'll lose the girl to the Great White Way, buys the show and promptly closes it. But Janie, who's fallen in love with Patch, teams with her new sweetheart to restage the show with their own meager savings -- and surprise of surprises, it's a smash hit. Truly an embarrassment of riches, Dancing Lady introduced Fred Astaire to the movie-going public, solidified the popularity of MGM's new tenor Nelson Eddy, and offered a wide berth for the comedy antics of Ted Healy and his Three Stooges -- Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine (Larry, performing his role in a Jewish dialect, has a wonderful double-take bit with a jigsaw puzzle which turns out to be a portrait of Adolf Hitler). As a bonus, the film offers spectacular musical production numbers, not to mention the enduring song hit "Everything I Have is Yours." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, (more)
- 1933
In this comedy, a hard-working secretary is often too busy taking prospective buyers out on the town to pay much attention to her fiancé. In the end, she drops the jealous fellow in favor of another who seems to be a better prospect. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Regis Toomey, (more)
- 1932
A very young Loretta Young stars in this domestic drama in which a naïve department store clerk falls for an inveterate gambler. The clerk, Buster Green, falls in love with handsome Wallie Dennis (Norman Foster) at a dance and marries him after a whirlwind romance. But their wedded bliss is ruined by Wallie's gambling habit and a pregnant Buster is forced to return to the Mayfield Department Store counter. In an effort to salvage her crumbling marriage, Buster plays on a dark horse to win the Big Race but is cheated out of her prize by unscrupulous bookie Martie Happ (Noel Madison). An angered Wallie picks a fight with Happ and is arrested by the police. Buster, meanwhile, delivers a baby girl and Wallie, who has been released due to the happy circumstances, bets that their next child will be a boy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Winnie Lightner, (more)
- 1931
"There is never a suggestion of subtlety in this tale" was the New York Times' acidic but accurate assessment of the Technicolor comedy Manhattan Parade. Winnie Lightner plays Doris, the wife and business partner of Herbert (Charles Butterworth), owner of a theatrical costume store. When Herbert scampers off to parts unknown in the company of flashy blonde Charlotte (Greta Granstedt), Doris takes over the management of their store. She has a pretty rough time of it until European impresario Vassiloff (Luis Alberni) rents every costume in the store for a lavish stage spectacular. Alas, the show folds after one night, but Herbert saves the day by returning in the nick of time with a big moneymaking scheme. Child actor Dickie Moore has a cute bit in which he lulls Winnie Lightner to sleep with a bedtime story, a gag later expanded upon by Laurel & Hardy in Pack Up Your Troubles. Otherwise, Manhattan Parade is pretty slow going, save for the Jewish-dialect patter of comedians Smith & Dale (the real-life counterparts for Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Charles Butterworth, (more)
- 1931
Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson's final film for Warner Bros. is as much a vehicle for comedienne Winnie Lightner as it is for the venerable vaudeville team. The premise: Gertie (Lightner) marries Harlan (Johnson), then divorces him to marry Guthrie (Olsen), Harlan's partner in a bathing-suit manufacturing business. After Gertie dumps Guthrie, he weds Lucille (Vivian Oakland), while Harlan ties the knot with Lucille's sister Mabel (Dorothy Christy). Several years pass before Gertie re-enters Harlan and Guthrie's lives, demanding back alimony. Since the partners have never informed their henpecking wives that they've been married before, the fur really begins to fly when Lucille and Mabel spot Gertie in a variety of compromising situations with their spouses. The laughs multiply when Gertie pursues her two ex-hubbies on an ocean liner, then descends upon them at a Florida swimsuit convention. Olsen and Johnson seem uncomfortable doing what is essentially Laurel and Hardy material (Ole Olsen even sports a mustache, a la Hardy), but they invest their roles with their usual manic enthusiasm. Gold Dust Gertie winds up with a slapstick speedboat chase, consisting mainly of stock footage from the recently completed Joe E. Brown comedy Top Speed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Chic Johnson, (more)
- 1931
The delightful Winnie Lightner was afforded her own movie vehicle in Side Show. Lightner stars as Pat, one of several members of a traveling carnival troupe managed by the eternally besotted Colonel Gowdy (Guy Kibbee). A Jill-of-all-trades, Pat does everything from high-diving to hula dancing, with time left over for a romance with meek-and-mild Sidney (Charles Butterworth), a man incapable of uttering an intelligent remark. There are moments of melodrama and pathos -- especially when Pat tries to save her younger sister, Irene (Evelyn Knapp), from a lecherous carny barker -- but comedy predominates throughout, culminating in a slapstick big-top finale. Unseen for many years, Side Show was resuscitated in the early '90s by the Turner Classic Movies cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Charles Butterworth, (more)
- 1931
Joe E. Brown had a fondness for playing milquetoast characters forced into situations calling for acute athletic prowess, mainly because he was an excellent athlete himself. In Sit Tight, our hero, a would-be wrestler named JoJo, is forced to enter the ring and face down a musclebound masked opponent (Frank S. Hagney). Making matters worse, the masked marauder is convinced that his wife has been fooling around with JoJo. To pad out the storyline, JoJo is knocked out early in the proceedings, whereupon he dreams he's a sultan surrounded by harem girls. Contractually, Winnie Lightner was afforded top billing, and there's a sappy attempt at a romantic subplot involving Paul Gregory and Claudia Dell, but Sit Tight is Joe E. Brown's picture all the way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Joe E. Brown, (more)
- 1930
The opening attraction at New York's Hollywood Theatre, Hold Everything was adapted from the DeSylva-Brown-Henderson musical of the same name that had served as a vehicle for Bert Lahr. For the film, both Lahr and most of the score were jettisoned, replaced by Joe E. Brown and songs by Al Dubin and Joe Burke. Brown plays Gink Schiner, a third-rate fighter who is at the same training camp as Georges LaVerne (played by Georges Carpentier), a contender for the heavyweight championship. Although he needs to be concentrating all of his energies on the upcoming bout, Georges keeps getting distracted: Norine Lloyd, a society dame, has a distinct interest in him, but the interest is strictly one-sided. Georges prefers Sue, an old buddy and confidante. Gink has woman trouble of his own, as his flirtations do not sit at all well with Toots, his erstwhile girl friend. More trouble arrives when Larkin, manager of current heavyweight champ Bob Morgan, appears at the camp with the goal of fixing the fight. He is sent packing, after which he attempts to slip a Mickey Finn to the challenger -- a plan which goes awry when Gink switches the drinks. Meanwhile, Gink, who is fighting in a preliminary in advance of the big fight, actually wins. Things don't look so bright for Georges, who initially gets the worst of it in his encounter with Morgan, but who eventually comes out on top. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe E. Brown, Winnie Lightner, (more)
- 1930
Its breezy, upbeat title notwithstanding, She Couldn't Say No leans heavily toward the melodramatic. Winnie Lightner plays Winnie Harper, a brassy cabaret singer who falls in love with gentleman gangster Jerry Casey (Chester Morris). So smitten is Jerry that he sets up Winnie in her own nightclub, for which she is eternally grateful. But Jerry can't keep his eyes -- or his hands -- away from society gal Iris (Sally Eilers), sending Winnie into a professional and personal funk. Our hero wises up long enough to help restore Winnie to stardom, but a happy reunion is prevented by the bullets of a rival gangster. Students of 1930s movie stereotypes are advised to scrutinize the "pansy" portrayal offered by Johnny Arther and the traditional malaprop-spouting black maidservant impersonated by Louise Beavers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Chester Morris, (more)
- 1930
In this comedy, one of the first to be completely shot in Technicolor, two shop clerks go out on the town to look for wealthy fellows to shower with them gifts and show them a good time. They end up pursuing two disparate men, a poor one and a rich one, to Havana where more romantic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Winnie Lightner, Irene Delroy, (more)
- 1929
Previously filmed in 1923, Avery Hopwood's 1920 comedy The Gold Diggers was resurrected in 1929 as the Technicolor musical Gold Diggers of Broadway. Nancy Welford, Winnie Lightner and Ann Pennington stars as Jerry, Mable and Ann, three chorus girls who try to entice a wealthy backer to put his money in their cash-poor Broadway show. Stuffy Stephen Lee (Conway Tearle) shows up to rescue his brother Wally (William Bakewell) from the heroine's clutches, only to succumb to the girls' charms himself. According to contemporary reviews, the show was stolen by Winnie Lightner as the brassiest of the three gold-diggers, and by crooner Nick Lucas, performing his signature tune Tiptoe Through the Tulips. The other big number from the film, Painting the Clouds with Sunshine, served as the title for the 1951 remake of Gold Diggers of Broadway, which in the interim had been filmed as the more famous Gold Diggers of 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Welford, Conway Tearle, (more)
- 1929
Basically a filmed vaudeville presentation, The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' entry in the "all star, all talking, all singing and all dancing" sweepstakes of 1929. Though slightly better than MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, the Warners entry pales in comparison to Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Paramount on Parade, due mainly to the film's master of ceremonies, the insufferable Frank Fay. Some of the individual acts seen in Show of Shows were pretty good, notably Winnie Lightner's delightful Singing in the Bathtub (a spoof of Hollywood Revue of 1929's Singin' in the Rain) and John Barrymore's brilliant rendition of Richard III's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Also easy to take was "Floradora Sextette," featuring such luminaries as Myrna Loy, Patsy Ruth Miller and cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin, and "Eight Sister Acts," including such Hollywood siblings as Dolores and Helene Costello, Sally Blane and Loretta Young and Shirley Mason and Viola Dana (also teamed in this number are Ann Sothern and Marion Byron, who were not sisters). But for the most part, the acts are on a par with "Skull and Crossbones," a boring production number showcasing entertainer Ted Lewis, and "Recitations," a one-joke affair in which three different anecdotes (related by Frank Fay, Louis Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton and Bea Lillie) are melded into one. Show of Shows was originally released in two-color Technicolor but now exists only in black in white, save for the "Chinese Fantasy" number featuring crooner Nick Lucas and Warner Bros. contractee Myrna Loy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
