TIMES SQUARE LADY (1935)

King Bradley runs a number of businesses in New York City, including a hockey team, a nightclub, and some boxers. When he dies, his daughter (Virginia Bruce) comes to the Big Apple from Iowa to take control, much to the consternation of some of his associates who want bigger pieces of the pie themselves. Robert Taylor, the owner of her Casa Nova nightclub, plays along with the bad guys for a while, helping to set up incidents designed to scare her back to the cornfields, but she is made of tougher stuff. The two, along with hayseed Oklahoma singer Pinky Tomlin, plot to sell the businesses off to legitimate owners. Of course there is potentially dangerous blowback from the cabal, including Taylor's ex-gal (Helen Twelevetrees), but with some help from tough guy Nat Pendleton, who leaves the baddies and joins up with the good guys, there's a happy ending for Taylor and Bruce. This pleasant but undistinguished film was Taylor's first leading role and he's fine; he's handsome and slick, and he has good chemistry with Bruce (the two were apparently dating at the time). Tomlin is essentially playing himself, a sort of Kay Kyser personality whose song, "The Object of My Affection," which he sings here, was a big hit. Bruce is one of those starlets who never broke out big but who usually makes a movie worth seeing, and that's true here. [TCM]