Blessed Event
Blessed Event | |
---|---|
Directed by | Roy Del Ruth |
Written by | Howard J. Green |
Based on | Blessed Event 1932 play by Manuel Seff and Forrest Wilson |
Starring | Lee Tracy Mary Brian |
Cinematography | Sol Polito |
Edited by | James Gibbon |
Music by | Frank Marsales |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Blessed Event is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Lee Tracy as a newspaper gossip columnist who becomes entangled with a gangster. The Tracy character (Alvin Roberts) was reportedly patterned after Walter Winchell, famous gossip columnist of the era. The film was Dick Powell's film debut.[1]
Plot[]
Alvin Roberts (Lee Tracy) feuds with Bunny Harmon (Dick Powell), a singer. Roberts reports on society people who are expecting a "blessed event", i.e. going to have a child. One such report antagonizes a gangster in a delicate situation, who sends over a henchman to threaten him. Roberts manages to turn the tables on the gangster.
The character of Bunny Harmon is a parody of Rudy Vallee, as both of them sing and play saxophone, and Vallee's band was called the Connecticut Yankees, while Harmon's is the Green Mountain Boys, a reference to another New England state, Vermont. The feud between Roberts and Harmon is a parody of the real-life (contrived) feud between Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie.
Cast[]
- Lee Tracy as Alvin Roberts
- Mary Brian as Gladys Price
- Allen Jenkins as Frankie Wells
- Ruth Donnelly as Miss Stevens
- Ned Sparks as George Moxley
- Dick Powell as Bunny Harmon
- Edwin Maxwell as Sam Goebel
- Emma Dunn as Mrs. Roberts
- Isabel Jewell as Dorothy Lane (uncredited)
- George Chandler as Hanson
- Frank McHugh as Reilly
References[]
External links[]
- 1932 films
- English-language films
- 1932 comedy-drama films
- American films
- American comedy-drama films
- American black-and-white films
- Films about journalists
- Films directed by Roy Del Ruth
- American gangster films
- Warner Bros. films
- 1930s comedy-drama film stubs