Miss Pacific Fleet

Two young women running a ring toss in a carnival work on entering a contest so they can get back to New York in Miss Pacific Fleet (1935).

The two women are Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell, and they need money so they can return to New York and get chorus work. They decide that Gloria (Blondell) will enter to win $2500 and a trip to New York for two. But they have to get the votes.

Amusing comedy. I'm always amazed and how quickly people talked on screen in those days.

This film was made during the Depression, something to take peoples' minds of off their troubles.

Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell are great as always, and made several films together. Hugh Herbert plays a businessman always trying to get away from his wife. The film also features the usual suspects - Allen Jenkins, Minna Gombell, and Guinn Williams, with good-looking Warren Hull as Gloria's boyfriend.

Cute, light, an artifact of another time.

This is a horrible film. It's not just horrible, it makes you angry when you realise why it was made so bad.

The only interesting thing about this (besides the electronic monkey) is that it's a classic example of how bad a picture can become when nobody involved wants to make it. Everything about this is excruciatingly awful: the story, the direction, the photography and the acting (especially the acting!) is shambolic.

Joan Blondell, the loveliest actress of the 1930s had had enough of having to play the exact same part in the exact same story with the exact same team and same director in her last four movies. She was a great actress but could see no end to her own personal Groundhog Day so tried to rebel against Warners. Cagney and Bette Davis had done the same and won and become massive stars. Joan unfortunately, maybe because she was going through a messy divorce at the time, didn't.

The studio then forced her do this as punishment. It was made really quickly on a shoestring so looked incredibly cheap. It was made badly on purpose which was Warners' way of crushing her ambition and keeping their asset doing what they wanted. It's so upsetting watching this because this atrocious, badly written, totally unfunny trash was how the studio if not exactly ruined but certainly stifled her career.

The awesome and beautiful Joan Blondell teams up with Glenda Farrell (again) to make Miss Pacific Fleet. They made eight films together! Mae and Gloria work in a amusement concession, and get into trouble with the law. if they can win a contest, they can pay off their debts. Hugh Herbert anad Allen Jenkins are along for humor! some funny stuff in here, a mix of physical humor and word play. the US needed some humor, coming out of the depression. at one point, there's a china pineapple sitting on the shelf, and the top flips up, plays music, while a pair of monkey eyes blinks. weirdest music box ever! the film is a fun romp. you just can't go wrong with Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell... it's kind of like watching Lucy and Ethel run around the candy factory. Directed by Ray Enright. i think his big claim to fame was making seven films with Randolph Scott.

One in a series of B pictures that teamed Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell as brassy dames usually on the run or on the make. Here they get talked into a fixed beauty pageant so they can scram California and get back to Broadway and chorus girl jobs. They run a ring toss concession in a carny.

Fast and funny but without much substance, the girls are a good comedy team, usually aided by stock players from Warners: Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins, Minna Gombell, Mary Treen, Marie Wilson, Eddie Acuff, Warren Hull, Mabel Colcord, Sarah Edwards, Mary Doran, Jack Norton, and Guinn Williams.

Farrell and Blondell are always worth watching but in between a few laughs there's not much going on here. Hugh Herbert gets the most laughs with his HOO HOO act, mimicked by Farrell at one point, but Hull is pretty dull and no one else has much to do. The boxing angle with Jenkins is pretty lame.

Joan Blondell must be one of the most appealing actresses in movie history. And Glenda Farrell, though less well known, is also always great company. Allen Jenkins is kind of an unlikely leading man (though he's also a very reliable comic actor.) He shows a very muscular build here, playing a boxer.

Hugh Herbert played variations on the same note in way too many movies for my taste. He's amusing here, though. And Minna Gombell is entertainingly shrewish as his bossy wife.

The plot involves a beauty contest. The girls are roommates and they're hoping Blondell can win and turn around their financial fortune. Though it's pretty G (or maybe PG) stuff, we see lots of beautiful girls who are also contestants.

Anyone who likes the Golddigeer movies, "42nd Street," etc., is likely to find this slight but agreeable.