Vagabond Lady

The thought of Robert Young in a madcap comedy is not a pleasant one. His cheerful zaniness always seems forced. Here he is saddled with a deadly plot. Worse, he is asked to play against a real cipher as a leading lady: Evelyn Venable is haunting as Gracia in "Death Takes A Holiday." She would have been better off had she stayed with solemn roles like this, because she appears to have no sense of comedy. She drags through this. She doesn't look pretty, either, though she looks lovely in the elegant "Death Takes A Holiday." The running joke in this is that Young likes gumdrops and Venable's fiancé doesn't. She likes them too. They are both welcome to them..

Department store owner R.D. Spear (Berton Churchill) is a stuffy businessman and his son Johnny (Reginald Denny) is following in his father's footsteps. But their orderly world is shaken up with the surprise return of Johnny's fun-loving brother Tony (Robert Young), who'd been sailing abroad for several years.

Jo Spiggins (Evelyn Venable), the daughter of Mr. Spear's old college chum, grew up with Johnny and Tony and now Johnny has asked her to marry him. But Tony really brings out the kid in Jo, and they both enjoy fun things like going to circuses and chewing on gumdrops. Johnny is all about dignity and highbrow culture (operas, etc.). He realizes that Jo doesn't share his tastes in the finer things, but hopes to groom her to be on his level of sophistication.

It's so cute to see Jo and Tony together. Her face lights up when she sees him and it's like they're kids again, thick as thieves. There's a big difference in the way she acts with Johnny and the way she acts with Tony. Johnny stifles her more playful, childish instincts, while Tony embraces them.

Having not seen her in years, Tony doesn't realize that he has any romantic feelings toward Jo until her father (Frank Craven) suggests it. (Jo's father wants to save his daughter from marrying the stuffy Johnny, and notes her interest in "good ol' Tony".) As his brother points out, Tony has never really grown up, but in the scene where he realizes how much he cares about Jo you can see the transformation in him. Unfortunately, ghosts from Tony's wild past send Jo running back to stable, boring Johnny.

The movie shows how passionately Jo and Tony feel about each other by how heated their arguments get. And when they start throwing things at each other and tossing each other over furniture, we know they're in love. Strange as it may seem, it's cute to watch. Exhausted from their fight, they collapse into each other's arms.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but it managed to charm me. Evelyn Venable is very pretty as Jo and it's immediately clear that she belongs with Tony, not Johnny. Robert Young and Reginald Denny both do well in their parts. Frank Craven is great as Jo's father, particularly in the scene where he gauges Jo's interest in Tony by the way she defends him against disparaging remarks. With charming performances by the cast and some great little comedic moments, VAGABOND LADY (1935) is an enjoyable, if inconsequential, romantic comedy.

Every day can't be Christmas, every at-bat can't be a home run, every movie can't be expected to be an immortal classic. *Vagabond Lady* is solidly amusing fare rather of the screwball comedy mold, making fresh use of familiar Hollywood tropes to send us out of the theater smiling. The secondary and bit parts are handled pitch-perfectly by often-familiar professionals of the era who clearly knew the genre and the tone required for it, and threw themselves into it with pleasure and zest. Reginald Denny came from a family in which both his father and grandmother were Gilbert & Sullivan originals; he seems to have soaked up the family's experience, and his performances frequently show the characteristic deft Gilbertian handling of what might be termed restrained absurdity. His talent for this is well displayed in *Vagabond Lady*; his expressions of profound aversion to gumdrops still coax laughs from me as they linger in the memory. Robert Young, though he throws himself fully into his role and does well enough, just doesn't have the right vibes or charisma for it. Evelyn Venable as the leading lady similarly does well enough or even better than well enough, and is radiantly beautiful; but her performance is not well modulated. The production values are on the high side (be ready for rear projections now and then), the script is fine, the show moves right along--you will spend a little over an hour being amused by an unpretentious and workmanlike mid-30s comedy, time spent pleasantly with a few out-loud laughs. Come to it as you'd come to a standard TV situation comedy in one of its better outings, and, afterwards, you'll feel that, in investing time in it, you've done well.

The Spear family is very well respected and run a department store. However, the very conservative father (Berton Churchill) and his oldest son, Johnny (Reginald Denny) are worried, as the black sheep of the family, Tony (Robert Young) has just blown into town. He's nothing like his brother and father. Instead of loving business and fitting into high society, Tony is a fun-loving free spirit. And, how is this going to affect Josephine (Evelyn Venable)...the woman who is supposed to marry Johnny? After all, she thinks Tony is wonderful! But is he just too much of a free spirit?

This film was distributed by MGM but was made by Hal Roach Studios. In the mid-1930s, the studio wanted to get away from comedy shorts and begin making full-length film...such as this one and the longer Laurel & Hardy flicks.

It did seem odd to me casting the very British and proper Denny as the brother of American accented Robert Young.

As for the story, some times Robert Young and the other bohemians try a bit too hard in the film, so if you're looking for subtlety you won't see it here! Overall, an interesting idea for a film that just doesn't come together very well. Watchable but not much more.