Jane Withers Movies

In this musical comedy, a young woman is sent to a National Youth Administration camp after her father is arrested for making moonshine. While there, a local developer endeavors to buy up the camp. To save it, the young woman stages an elaborate camp show. The developer is enchanted and changes his mind. More trouble ensues when the developer's payroll is purloined. Fortunately, the girl's father escapes from prison and brings the crooks to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Barry Benefield, Chicken Wagon Family affords nearly equal screen time to child star Jane Withers and veteran character actor Leo Carrillo. Tired of living in the boonies, itinerant merchant J. P. B. Fiffany (Carrillo) packs his family into his ramshackle wagon and sets out for New York. Alas, Fiffany has a fondness for poker, losing his hard-earned wages as quickly as he gets them. Fortunately, his enterprising daughter Addie (Jane Withers) is a human cornucopia of money-making schemes, and it is she who saves the day. Chicken Wagon Family was originally purchased by Fox as a Will Rogers vehicle, but was put on the back burner when Rogers died in 1935. Musical highlights include Jane Withers' boisterous rendition of "Daughter of Mademoiselle," originally performed by Louise Hovick (aka Gypsy Rose Lee) in The Battle of Broadway (1939). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the best of Jane Withers' 20th Century-Fox vehicles, Rascals is also the one that pops up most frequently on televisoin. Withers plays Gypsy, the youthful queen of a band of wandering vagabonds. Joining Gypsy and her fellow gypsies is amnesia victim Margaret Adams (Rochelle Hudson), who soon becomes the tribe's top fortune-teller. The gypsies finance an operation that will restore Margaret's memory, only to discover that she has been slated for a loveless marriage with a buffoonish baron (Jose Crespo). She is rescued from this fate by the resourceful Gypsy, who orchestrates a romance between Margaret and the misogynistic Tony (Robert Wilcox). Musical highlights are provided by the always-delightful Withers and by harmonica virtuosos Borrah Minevitch and His Gang. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sunny western, a mischievous young girl living in the Arizona territory during the 1870s, causes all kinds of trouble while trying to prove that her foster-daddy did not steal a gold shipment. Later, the step-dad, a former outlaw, re-gathers his gang to find the real culprit -- a shady sheriff. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Wild and Woolly stars young Jane Withers as a hoydenish resident of a modern frontier town. Revelling in the town's 50th anniversary celebration, Jane is brought down to earth by the long-standing feud between her ex-desperado grandfather (Walter Brennan) and a pompous politician (Berton Churchill). The two oldsters challenge one another to a shootout, but at the last moment grandpa Brennan decides not to show up. Branded a coward, Brennan redeems himself by foiling a bank robbery scheme which has been overheard by Jane. If for nothing else, Wild and Woolly is memorable for teaming Jane Withers with Our Gang stalwart Carl Switzer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Is it any surprise that hoydenish child star Jane Withers plays the title role in The Holy Terror? This time she plays Corky Wallace the irrepressible daughter of Naval Air Service Lt. Commander Wallace (John Eldredge), spending her spare time staging all-aviator musical shows. One of these entertainments takes place in a café which, unbeknownst to our heroine, serves as a rendezvous for a gang of foreign spies. The villains provoke a brawl with the servicemen, in hopes of getting the café closed down so that they can conduct their sinister activities in secret. But Withers gets wise to their scheme, and with the help of her aviator pals she literally smashes the spy ring once and for all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 45 Fathers of the title are the elderly members of the Gun and Spear Club, all of whom jointly adopt mischievous orphan girl Judith Frazier (Jane Withers) and her pet monkey. Our heroine wastes no time patching up the various family problems of her new "daddies." Of utmost priority are the travails of Roger Farragut (Thomas Beck), the nephew of old codger Bunny Carrothers (Richard Carle). With Judith's help, Roger is able to straighten out his romantic difficulties with Judith's big sister Elizabeth (Louise Henry). Featured in the cast of 45 Fathers is the popular Broadway song-and-dance team of Paul and Grace Hartman, who perform a ventriloquist routine with the multitalented Jane Withers (Hartman would later play "fixit man" Emmett on TV's The Andy Griffith Show). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this children's movie, a feisty little orphan with high moral standards is literally imprisoned in a terrible orphanage. She is elated to discover that she is actually the daughter of a prominent lawyer who has been searching for her, but when she sees that another little girl needs a daddy more than she does, she exchanges papers with her and lets her go the good home. Fortunately, the truth is discovered and she too is reunited with her father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This musical satire parodies Southern living as it follows the exploits of a traveling medicine show that ends up on a bankrupt plantation. It is just as well as Doc Gurgle and his daughter have just lost their show. The plantation is run by a Kentucky colonel. Young Miss Gurgle and her pa decide to help save the plantation by putting on an amateur show in the stately mansion. She is assisted by the enthusiastic plantation workers. Songs include: "Uncle Tom's Cabin Is a Cabaret Now." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Henry Fonda made his screen debut in this filmization of his Broadway success The Farmer Takes a Wife. The story is set along the Erie Canal in the 1850s. Fonda plays a farmer who takes a river job to make ends meet. He falls in love with Janet Gaynor, daughter of a canal-boat cook, who thinks very little of farmers. Nonetheless, Fonda and Gaynor marry, much to the displeasure of canal skipper Charles Bickford, who'd assumed that Janet was his girl. When Fonda avoids a fight with Bickford, Janet believes that he's yellow, but he eventually proves otherwise. It is said that during his first day on the set, movie novice Henry Fonda, noting the camera direction "dolly with Dan and Molly" in the script, asked director Victor Fleming who Dolly was. Adapted from the play by Frank B. Elser and Marc Connelly, The Farmer Takes a Wife was remade with Betty Grable and Dale Robertson in 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eight year old Paddy O'Day (Jane Withers) arrives at Ellis Island after a long sea voyage from Ireland, to be with her mother. But her mother is nowhere to be found when the ship docks, and the authorities are notified that Mrs. O'Day has died, only a few days ago -- the little girl will have to be sent back. Paddy has only been told that her mother is ill, and manages to sneak out off the island. After encountering a group of street urchins who try to make trouble for her -- and proving that she's got what it takes to take care of herself -- she makes her way to the large mansion on Long Island where her mother works, and learns the truth. The home is owned by Roy Ford (Pinky Tomlin), a studious upper-class bird fancier who has been browbeaten into life as an eccentric collector of stuffed birds by his two overbearing aunts (Vera Lewis, Louise Carter) -- their intention is to notify the authorities if Paddy shows up. But the servants, led by kindly maid Jane Darwell and initially unwilling butler Russell Simpson, decide to hide the child in the house while the aunts are away. Paddy chances to meet Roy, who takes a liking to her and decides to try and help her as well -- and when Paddy's very pretty shipboard friend Tamara Petrovich (Rita Cansino) shows up, along with her restauranteur cousin Mischa (George Givot), he starts to really come out of his shell. Mischa and Tamara will hide the little girl, and Mischa -- with help from a beverage new to Roy, called vodka -- convinces the young millionaire that there is a future in investing in his establishment. Roy likes the loosening up effect that vodka has on him, and also likes even more being around Tamara, and he soon becomes a new man -- not only a partner in the business, but a performer in the stage show that Mischa works up for his now-expanded restaurant/night club, which includes Paddy along with Tamara. But Roy's aunts have returned home, and are as appalled by their nephew's new, joyful approach to life as they are by his apparent infatuation with an immigrant girl and her family. They hire an investigator (Clarence H. Wilson) to try to prove that Roy is mentally incompetent, and he soon discovers that the little Irish waif working in the act is in the United States illegally, a fact that, once reported to the authorities, will get not only get Paddy deported by Tamara as well. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields is in fine fettle as small-town grocer Harold Bissonette (pronounced Biss-o-NAY). Harold dreams of becoming a California orange farmer, but his gorgon wife (Kathleen Howard) will have none of it. After a grueling day at the store, during which his electric light stock is destroyed by a cane-wielding blind man (Charles Sellon), and his floor is flooded with molasses by the impish Baby LeRoy, Harold announces that he's sold the store and bought an orange grove. Seeking to escape his wife's nagging, Harold tries to sleep on his porch, which proves impossible thanks to innumerable interruptions--not least of which is an insurance salesman (T. Roy Barnes) loudly asking for Karl LaFong ("capital L, small A, capital F, small O, small N, small G!") The next day, Harold packs his family into the car and heads off for California. Once there, the little band of pilgrims drives onto the property of a wealthy man, assuming that it's a public park. They make a shambles of the grounds while trying to have a picnic, whereupon they are chased off the land by the scowling owner (Guy Usher). Finally, Harold arrives at his "vast" orange grove--consisting of a tumbledown shack and one scrawny tree. Harold sits silently ruminating over his bad luck until his new neighbor informs him that a wealthy land developer wishes to buy Harold's property to build a stadium. "Don't let them bluff you," advises the neighbor. "You can get any price." The potential buyer turns out to be the same fellow whose property had been invaded by Bissonette the day before, but business is business. The buyer offers several insulting sums, but Harold, fortified by a flask of gin, holds firm. "You're drunk!" the buyer shouts. "And you're crazy," responds Harold. "But tomorrow I'll be sober, and you'll always be crazy." Harold's stubbornness saves the day, and we fade on the satisfying sight of the Bissonette family living in luxury on the huge orange grove of Harold's dreams. A remake of Fields' silent It's the Old Army Game, It's a Gift was written by J.P. McEvoy and one Charles Bogle--and there isn't a Fields fancier alive who doesn't know who Charles Bogle really is. Downplayed by detractors as being merely three two-reelers strung together, It's a Gift has survived such piddling criticism to emerge as one of W.C. Fields' funniest efforts, as well as a comedy classic by any standards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide