I can get to be a little bit completist for some sorts of movies - often older series, like the Torchie Blaine movies. So when I found out that Glenda Farrell and Joan Blondell made 5 movies together, i went out and bought the four that I could find:
Havana Widows (1933) is sort of the gold standard. Farrell an Blondell are chorus girls who are barely making it. An old friend drops by in a limousine, covered in furs and diamonds, and lets them in on a secret. There are a ton of old millionaires in Havana who can be sued for breach of promise. She even gave them the name of a crooked lawyer, Frank McHugh.
They try to get travelling money from their lowlife friend Alan Jenkins, who borrows it from his mobster boss, Ralph Ince - and then loses it gambling. When they do get some money, Jenkins joins them to avoid his boss.
They target married Guy Kibbee to entrap, but Blondell falls for his son, Lyle Talbott, who has no money of his own. And so it goes. Two gold diggers with hearts of gold, a bunch of great character actors, everyone playing drunk most of the time, and a sort of happy ending. Lots of laughs, and a one hout runtime.
I’ve Got Your Number (1934) is really more of a Pat O'Brien movie. After a couple of montages about our nations switchboards, we find O'Brien installing or fixing phones with his partner Alan Jenkins. On a call to an apartment full of babes, he trades sexy barbs with them, but Jenkins just says, "Let's get outta here," his catchphrase in this movie. O'Brien has a romance with switchboard operator Joan Blondell, but also runs with phony fortune teller Glenda Farrell.
This one has more plot (which I couldn't really follow, due to asleepiness) and less romance. Also less Farrell, sadly. But plenty of sadsack Alan Jenkins.
Traveling Saleslady (1935) has Blondell as the doting daughter of an old-fashioned manufacturer, Grant Mitchell. She wants some modern advertising, but he won't budge. He prefers the old ways of his number one salesman, William Gargan. It turns out his method is to take the buyers out on the town with some party girls. For women buyers like Farrell, he woos them himself.
Blondell comes across Hugh Herbert, an ex-bootlegger who has a lot of alcohol flavoring - he proposes to make booze-flavored toothpaste. Blondell takes the idea to a competitor (Al Shean!), and secretly takes a job selling this as a travelling saleslady. So she starts a rivalry with Gargan, and it develops into a romance. Sadly, Farrell is very much short changed here.
Miss Pacific Fleet (1935) again has Blondell and Farrell broke - this time working a carnival. Alan Jenkins plays Blondell's guy, a sailor on leave named Kewpie. When he finds out they are broke, he suggests they enter the Miss Pacific Fleet contest. The winner will be chosen by vote, plus some boosts by, for example, the winner of a fleet boxing competition.
But he also introduces Blondell to his pal Warren Hull. And while Jenkins is a whirlwind of energy and a boxing champion, he looks like Alan Jenkins. So Blondell falls for Hull. Jenkins realizes this in the middle of the boxing match and gives his endorsement to Marie Wilson (My Friend Irma). The competition is run by Hugh Herbert, and his wife is jealous of Blondell, leading to more hi-jinks.
I liked all of these, but they mostly suffered by leaning too heavily on Blondell and neglecting Farrell. They should be a team (maybe stealing each other's guys), trying to entrap rich old millionaires while falling in love withh hunky young paupers, surrounded by goofball character actors like Hugh Herbert and particularly, Alan Jenkins. His "Kewpie" goes down in film history along with George O'Brien's Coffee Cupp - say, I never did blog about him. OK, that's next.
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