Paddy the Next Best Thing

Tea planter Warner Baxter shows up in Ireland, getting ready to ask Margaret Lindsay to marry him. Walter Connolly, is about to have everything repossessed by creditors, so persuades her to do so, although she loves local lad Harvey Stephens. On the way to ask, however, Baxter rescues Janet Gaynor, whose sailboat has been swamped in the bay.

We know how this is going to turn out, but there are all those loose ends to tie up, mostly by arranging for Connolly to croak, and allowing Baxter, with apparently an infinite fortune, to settle all matters. There's the inevitable third-act bafflement when Miss Gaynor decides she hates Baxter, but we can be certain this will be handwaved away by the end.

In short, it's typical, sentimental piffle, and while everyone performs their roles well -- Connolly, as always, is excellent -- this was from the weakest period of Fox, and they were allowing their leads to carry the movie instead of giving them good writing or a strong director. Miss Gaynor's roles would show an upswing the following year, but she would not survive the merger with Zanuck's 20th Century Productions.

Something of a follow-up to the 1931 "Daddy Long Legs," which also had Janet Gaynor as a waif eventually won by the much, much older Warner Baxter, this one has her as Walter Connolly's spunky Irish daughter, whose older sister (nicely played by Margaret Lindsay) is about to marry Baxter for his money and thus retire Connolly's debts, though she loves Harvey Stephens, who is in fact infinitely more appealing than Warner Baxter. I've never understood Baxter's appeal, and Gaynor is pretty hard to take here, too, overdoing as she so often did at Fox her "love me, I'm an adorable little girl" persona. She doesn't even attempt an Irish accent, nor can we tell whether Baxter is supposed to be American, English, Irish, or Canadian. Connolly is wonderful, though, and the Irish atmosphere is winsome and convincing--if that's not Galway location shooting, it's the best imitation I've ever seen. It's pleasant enough, with more pacing than the early Fox talkies usually displayed, but not particularly worth seeking out.