A B-budget remake of the pre-Code classic THREE ON A MATCH. Margaret Lindsay is a rich, bored housewife and mother; Ann Sheridan is a low-rent singer/dancer; Marie Wilson is a secretary. The three were all friends growing up in an orphanage and they meet up again when Sheridan is thrown in jail for starting a strip tease and the other two pay her bail. They renew their friendship and get tangled up in each other's lives. Lindsay is having an affair with a gangster (Richard Bond); at first, Sheridan helps her hide the affair, but after Lindsay leaves for her new beau, Sheridan falls for her husband (John Litel) and they marry. Soon, Bond has put Lindsay's young daughter (Janet Chapman) in danger over some gambling debts, and Lindsay risks her own life to save her daughter. Litel and Chapman made an underwhelming father-daughter duo in LITTLE MISS THOROUGHBRED but they are slightly better here. Lindsay is bland as the tragic figure in the trio, nowhere near as good as Anne Dvorak was in the original (Bond is also no threat the original bad guy, Lyle Talbot) though Sheridan and Wilson are fine. Instead of the "three on a match" ritual in the first movie, here the women meet for lunch and throw their glasses into a fireplace. A comic highlight in the retelling of Snow White in gangster lingo by Dewey Robinson, a goon with a soft spot for kids, to Chapman. Also with Dick Purcell as the chief thug. Overall, does nothing to improve on the original except for the women's toast: "May we never have shiny noses." [TCM]
Friday, February 17, 2017
BROADWAY MUSKETEERS (1938)
A B-budget remake of the pre-Code classic THREE ON A MATCH. Margaret Lindsay is a rich, bored housewife and mother; Ann Sheridan is a low-rent singer/dancer; Marie Wilson is a secretary. The three were all friends growing up in an orphanage and they meet up again when Sheridan is thrown in jail for starting a strip tease and the other two pay her bail. They renew their friendship and get tangled up in each other's lives. Lindsay is having an affair with a gangster (Richard Bond); at first, Sheridan helps her hide the affair, but after Lindsay leaves for her new beau, Sheridan falls for her husband (John Litel) and they marry. Soon, Bond has put Lindsay's young daughter (Janet Chapman) in danger over some gambling debts, and Lindsay risks her own life to save her daughter. Litel and Chapman made an underwhelming father-daughter duo in LITTLE MISS THOROUGHBRED but they are slightly better here. Lindsay is bland as the tragic figure in the trio, nowhere near as good as Anne Dvorak was in the original (Bond is also no threat the original bad guy, Lyle Talbot) though Sheridan and Wilson are fine. Instead of the "three on a match" ritual in the first movie, here the women meet for lunch and throw their glasses into a fireplace. A comic highlight in the retelling of Snow White in gangster lingo by Dewey Robinson, a goon with a soft spot for kids, to Chapman. Also with Dick Purcell as the chief thug. Overall, does nothing to improve on the original except for the women's toast: "May we never have shiny noses." [TCM]
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