Something Always Happens

Ian Hunter is broke, and that's how he likes it. He befriends young John Singer, they charm landlady Muriel George, and Hunter has a meet cute with Nancy O'Neil. Hunter has a big idea to make petrol stations busier. Miss O'Neil suggests he take it to Peter Gawthorne. Gawthorne throws him out of his office, so Hunter takes it to the failing competition. He also takes Miss Neil into the office as his private secretary. He doesn't know she's Gawthorne's daughter.

Michael Powell's movie for Warner's Teddington branch bumps along at a good pace, with people speaking fast, things happening, and so forth. Yet the art deco look and lack of urgency about the characters' problems makes it feel a lot like the lesser stuff that RKO would be turning out in a year. I am struck by the idea that this is more a burlesque of the urban romcom than an example of the form itself, Matters fall into place far too quickly, then it's on to the next plot point. As facilely and pleasantly as it's directed, it feels insincere, as if everyone said "let's make this movie, and maybe the next one will be more interesting." And then everyone put in a full day's work, and did their best, and then just forgot about it when they came in to work the day after. But I feel that way about a lot of the lesser RKO romcoms too.

Ian Hunter stars in this British quota quickie, Something Always Happens from 1934, directed by none other than Michael Powell.

Hunter is Peter Middleton, a man down on his luck. He meets a street urchin (John Singer), and together they finagle room and board with a kindly landlady (Muriel George).

Looking to procure a foreign car for a millionaire, he meets a young woman, Cynthia (Nancy O'Neil) whom he assumes is also broke. In fact, her father owns a fleet of gas stations. When she learns he needs a job, she sends Peter to him without revealing her identity.

Cynthia's rather, Hatch, throws him out, but Peter gets the man's rival to agree to his money-making idea. Soon he's on top. He and Hatch are now rivals.

Very charming and entertaining British film.

This was just shown on Turner Classic Movies, the first time its been shown on television in the US. It was made by Teddington Studios, the British studio then under the control of Warner Brothers. It was a "quota quickie", a film made under the British Cinematograph Films Act of 1927- created to counter the dominance of American films in Britain.

The film is a simple (if properly restrained British) love story. It begins as an unemployed car salesman, Peter Middleton, who has lost the last of his money in cards, takes a street orphan under his wing and pretending the orphan is his son, persuades a softhearted landlady to rent him a room, although he has no money.

The next day, while trying to con the chauffeur of a fancy motorcar, he meets the rich young Cynthia Hatch. However, intrigued by his audacity, she hides her identity from him when he mistakes her for a working girl and to impress her, he pretends that the car is his. And so, in the best scene in the movie, she convinces him to take her to a fancy restaurant that he, of course, he can't pay for. There she puts him up to going to the powerful Mr. Hatch (her father, still unknown to him) to pitch a scheme for petrol (gas) stations. He promises that he will make good and then hire her as his secretary.

However, her scheme backfires when her father rejects him and he goes to work for the competition. He holds her to her promise, and she finds herself working for her father's chief competitor.

Its all wrapped up neatly in a little more than an hour as the young entrepreneur gets the best of his future father-in-law and wins the girl. As the girl, Nancy O'Neil is quite good and Ian Hunter is good, if a little stiff, as the lead. After this film, he went to Hollywood, where he may be best known for playing King Richard in "The Adventures of Robin Hood".

It was directed by Michael Powell, who went on to make "Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes", among other classics.

I call this a relic not because it is old. Oh no: Old movies are my thing. Nor because it has been essentially unknown in the United States until now, though that is interesting.

It's because the mores have changed distinctly in 73 years. This relates to the little boy we first see in the film. He is a street orphan and is touchingly written, acted -- and directed, though what else would one expect from the great Michael Powell? Ian Hunter, quite charming as a loafer from a higher class, finds him on the street. He is down on his luck too; so he takes the boy under his wing. The first thing that would not pass muster with censors and/or would upset some viewers today is that he rents a room and has this child share it with him. Oh my! What a scandal that would create! And in addition, he makes pajamas for the child from the softhearted landlady's rug.

Then, when things look up, he seems to have hired the child to work for the car company where he's wangled a job. (The film is primarily about his romance with the daughter of an auto magnate and his change in fortune.) The boy wears a uniform, no less! Child labor laws would make such employment for a little boy unacceptable.

The acting is excellent throughout. The young woman, the boy, the landlady -- all are good. And Hunter shows himself a much more interesting actor than his roles in Kay Francis vehicles a few years hence would have suggested.

I was just about floored with this wonderful movie! Utterly charming and engaging cast...starting with that little mudlark that really sparks the entire show, Johnny Singer. He reminds me of a combination of that wonderful English actor in "The Mudlark" and the Italian actor in Katherine Hepburn's "Summertime".

I must say that even though the plot is familiar, something that rings fresh and true really captivated me about this movie. Ian Hunter and Nancy O'Neil were just perfect, in my opinion. And the funny parts were simply delightful.

TCM must simply show more of these wonderful movies! Thank you, Robert Osborne and TCM!