Stubs - Big City Blues

Big City Blues (1932) Starring: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Jobyna Howland. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay by Ward Morehouse, Lillie Hayward. Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse (copyrighted 5 Jan 1932). Producer Uncredited. USA Run time: 63 minutes Black and White. Drama.

There are some actors that when I see one of their movies is going to be on TCM, I make a point of recording to make sure I can watch it. Joan Blondell is one of those whose films I try to catch if I can. Recently, I happened to see that Big City Blues was going to be on, which is how I ended up watching this film.

At this point in her career, Blondell was very busy. Having arrived in Hollywood in 1930 thanks to her Broadway appearance in Penny Arcade and was cast to reprise her role in the film version Sinners' Holiday (1930). By the end of 1932, she would have appeared in 21 films, some as a co-star or in a supporting role and some as the star, as with Big City Blues.

Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) misses his train to New York.

Based on the unproduced play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, a former theater critic, the film tells the story of Bud Reeves (Eric Linden), a naive young man who lives in a small town in Indiana. After inheriting $1,100 from his aunt, he decides to use the money to move to New York City.

Station Agent (Grant Mitchell) has had his own misadventures in New York City.

Bud misses his train but another one is coming. Station Agent (Grant Mitchell) tries but can’t talk him out of going, though he does agree to take care of Bud’s dog Duke, which had followed Bud to the train. The Station Agent has had his own misadventures when he went to New York, but that does not deter Bud. He plans to move there, find a job, and never come back. The Station Agent bets a pouch of tobacco that Bud will be back soon.

Gibboney “Gibby” (Walter Catlett) is Bud's slick-talking cousin.

Once in New York, Bud rents a modest-priced ($8 a night), but spacious hotel room and soon meets his much older, slick-talking cousin Gibboney “Gibby” (Walter Catlett). Gibby, who claims to know everyone, almost immediately begins to fleece Bud out of small amounts of his cash to buy things. He even acts like he knows the hotel manager and promises to negotiate a half-rate for Bud. But he lies to Bud and tells him that the room should cost $12 a night and he got him to let him keep the room at $8.

Bud and Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell) share love at first sight.

Gibby also introduces him to chorus girl Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell) and her friend Faun (Inez Courtney). Bud and Vida make eye contact and it is clear they share love at first sight.

The big night on the town ends with a party in Bud’s hotel room. For it, Gibby purchases a large amount of liquor and champagne from a local bootlegger. In addition to Vida and Faun, others joining the party include Jackie Devoe (Josephine Dunn) and more chorus girls, as well as three men: “Stacky” Stackhouse (Ned Sparks), Shep Adkins (Humphrey Bogart), and Lenny Sully (Lyle Talbot).

While Jackie came with Lenny, Shep makes a play for her. Lenny appears too drunk to take care of her and Shep, who is a bit of a wolf, sees an opening.

Briefly, the party, sans Bud and Vida, moves to another party in the hotel. When they return, they bring back two bottles of champagne and the party starts up again.

Meanwhile, Hummell (Guy Kibbee), the house detective, is making his rounds. Hummell has an obvious drinking problem. When he hears the loud party in Bud’s room, he investigates but gets paid off with one of the champagne bottles, which he puts with his stash in the linen closet.

Shep Adkins (Humphrey Bogart), and Lenny Sully (Lyle Talbot) get into a fight over Jackie in front of the other guests.

Later, after more considerable drinking, Shep and a very drunk Lenny begin arguing about who will take the now unconscious Jackie home. A fight ensues, furniture is overturned, windows were broken, and lamps are busted. Even with the lights go out, Shep and Lenny continue their brawl. Bottles are now being wildly thrown and used as weapons in the darkened room.

Jackie Devoe (Josephine Dunn) is accidentally killed.

When the lights come back on, the revelers discover that Jackie, lying on a couch, is dead, killed when one of the bottles hit her in the head. Everyone except Bud hurriedly leaves the hotel room, even Vida.

Bud starts to call the authorities, but thinks better of it and leaves as well. Vida returns for Bud and gets trapped in the room when Hummell returns looking for more liquor. It is Hummell who discovers Jackie’s body, but only after he also sees Vida sneak out of the room.

The police are called in and Hummell gives Detective Quelkin (Thomas Jackson) some rather vague descriptions of what he saw.

Bud has nowhere to go and Vida has disappeared. At one point, Bud tries to purchase a ticket home but flees when he realizes the police are watching for him.

Meanwhile, Vida is aware that she’s being followed by Detective Quelkin and tries to lose him.

The next night, Bud goes to the stage door outside the show Vida’s in, but she didn’t show that night.

Serena Cartlich (Jobyna Howland) befriends Bud at a speakeasy.

A taxi driver gets Bud into a speakeasy where he is befriended by an older woman, Serena Cartlich (Jobyna Howland), who buys him a drink. She offers to take him someplace nicer and he asks to go to the 50/50 club where Vida has said she sometimes goes.

Bud and Vida try to make money to get away by gambling on dice.

As luck would have it, Vida does show up there and the two of them are reunited. Quelkin is also there, but Bud doesn’t realize he’s looking for him. They go upstairs, which features a Monte Carlo-like Casino to try to win enough money to get away. Vida goes cold and they’re down to Bud’s last $100. He takes over and builds it back up, but gets greedy and loses it all. Quelkin then arrests him.

Quelkin has also rounded up everyone from the party, save Lenny, whom the police can’t find. No one confesses and Quelkin is convinced that Bud committed the crime. He even shows him the piece of the bottle that killed Jackie.

Hummell (Guy Kibbee), the house detective, plays up his role in the investigation in front of the hotel maids.

Meanwhile, Hummell is playing the big man in front of several of the housemaids at the hotel. He even tells them that it made him give up drinking only seconds before going back into the linen closet to get a drink. But in the closet, he finds Lenny, who had hung himself in the closet. Hummell also finds the matching piece of the bottle below the body.

Quelkin has the two pieces of the bottle and decides Bud is innocent.

With this new evidence, Quelkin determines Lenny killed Jackie and, with deep remorse for what he’d done, hung himself.

Free to go, Bud decides to go back to Indiana. Vida is with him at the station but won’t go back with him. After a tearful goodbye, Bud returns home.

The Station Agent isn’t surprised to see him. He gives him back Duke and offers, free of charge, to send the telegram Bud promised to send Vida. Bud goes home but he plans to return to New York. When the Station Agent reads the text of the telegram, he knows that Bud will.

Shot in April, the film was released on September 10, 1932. In his review for The New York Times¸ Mordaunt Hall seems to think the high point of the film is Walter Catlett. While he finds Eric Linden’s Bud Reeves “too silly to be at liberty alone,” he does like Gibbony. “Walter Catlett plays a man named Gibbony, Reeves's New York cousin. This clever comedian runs away with the acting laurels. He has more to say and do than he has had in any other feature and he affords a great deal of amusement. It is a pleasure to witness the scenes in which Mr. Catlett appears and quite painful to observe Mr. Linden's impersonation.”

Hall apparently likes the rest of the cast more than Linden. “Joan Blondell gives a good performance as Vida and the dependable Guy Kibbee is excellent as a bibulous hotel detective. Thomas Jackson makes a splendid police official and Grant Mitchell is ingratiating as a small-town railway clerk.”

I would have to disagree with Hall’s assessment of Catlett. While the actor made a career out of playing excitable, meddlesome, temperamental, and officious blowhards, a little goes a long way. Bud is so naïve that he doesn’t realize he’s being taken advantage of by his only relative in New York and I found myself hating how easily he was taken advantage of. Yes, Catlett does steal every scene he’s in, but you do find yourself wishing he would just shut up.

Despite Hall’s exultation of Catlett’s performance, Joan Blondell is the star of the film. She is very watchable even when the material is below par, as it is here. She always seems to give a good performance that is part humor and sexuality. Here, she adds a bit of dramatic acting to the mix.

One of the problems with the film is that while Blondell is good, Eric Linden is not. During his career, Linden often played “boyish second leads” and he seems to be more boyish here than you’d think a more sophisticated woman would find attractive. The two seem to have a lot in common, but you just don’t think she’d be happy with him long-term.

Humphrey Bogart as Shep Adkins.

There are a couple of future stars with minor roles in the film: Humphrey Bogart, Lyle Talbot and Evalyn Knapp. While Bogart and Talbot play small but pivotal roles in the film, Knapp’s Jo-Jo doesn’t. While Bogart would go onto become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Talbot would be a very busy actor through most of the 30s. Signed to a long-term contract by Warner Bros., his first film was Unholy Love (1932).

Talbot would be cast in many films at the studio until 1936 when his support of the Screen Actor’s Guild led to Warner Bros. dropping his contract. After that point, while he was rarely cast as a leading man, he would continue to work steadily as a capable character actor. He moved to television, where he is best remembered for his role as neighbor Joe Randolph, a character he played for ten years on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Evalyn Knapp who appeared with Blondell in Sinners' Holiday (1930), would also appear in Taxi! (1932) and Smart Money (1931), the latter being the only pairing of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Knapp would go on to appear in cliffhanger serials, including The Perils of Pauline (1933), which led to a starring role in His Private Secretary (1933) opposite John Wayne. She would work steadily until 1941 when her career slowed. In 1943, she retired from films.

This is a film that I wanted to like more than I actually did. I watched it for Blondell and she is one of the few highlights. I’m not sure if the storyline was “fresh” when the film came out, but watching nearly 90 years later it comes across as cliché. In some ways, it reminded me of a bad film noir, with the innocent man fleeing the scene of a crime only to get in more trouble than if he had done the right thing. However, this film ends with Bud getting off and getting back home in one piece. It might have been a more interesting film if he hadn’t.