Angel's Holiday

Jane Withers was one of those stars that came across as larger than life. She was the ultimate kid, full of energy and enthusiasm for whatever was thrown her way. From beginning to end, Jane is "on" in Angel's Holiday.

Angel's mystery writer father drops her off with his brother, a newspaper publisher. Ten year old Angel has a crush on Nick Moore, a reporter in hot water with the publisher. She even suggests he start calling her by her real name, June, as she thinks the name Angel is a bit childish. To help Nick win favor with his boss, she tips him off to the whereabouts of the missing movie star, Pauline Kaye. Pauline Kaye happens to be an old flame of Nick, and she is being hidden by her agent as a publicity stunt. By the time everything ends Jane has tangled with mobsters (looking to really kidnap the star), and the entire police force. She charms one of the crooks and irritates the police chief. Angel's Holiday really never has a dull moment. This movie is a gem among old movies!

Jane does her impression of Martha Raye, and then Joan Davis does a screwball routine. While Jane's comedy approach is still acceptable to contemporary audiences, Joan's comedy is definitely embedded in the 1930's. The comedy of this movie is more situational than jokes and routines, anyway, so anyone can find this movie funny today. Joan Davis' billing in the credits was higher than Sally Blane's, but Sally Blane had more screen time.

1937's "Angel's Holiday" helped cement Jane Withers' position as Fox's second biggest box office child star after Shirley Temple, which she held for two years. Jane's Angel is the daughter of famed mystery writer Waldo Everett (John Qualen), naturally involving herself in a real life puzzle involving movie star Pauline Kaye (Sally Blane), her disappearance a publicity stunt engineered by her manager, and racketeer Bat Regan (Harold Huber), who gets in on the action by tailing Angel. Not one of the star's better vehicles, though she does her impression of Martha Raye, then bamboozles the entire police force to free Pauline's cohort in mischief (Frank Jenks). Billed on screen as Regan's top henchman Eddie is Lon Chaney (entering at the 46 minute mark), still fairly new to 20th Century-Fox, his two year stint under contract yielding little in the way of featured roles; he appears in two further Jane Withers pictures in the coming months, "Wild and Woolly" and "Checkers," both an improvement on this one. One scene finds him cleaning his gat at the breakfast table, to which Bat Regan has a comment: "ain't you got any better etiquette than to be cleaning your rod at the table? Eddie's always in a bad mood before he has his breakfast, he's liable to pull a gun on himself!" Later on Chaney bullies Joan Davis: "hey, what do you think you are?" "what do I look like?" "you couldn't be that!"

Having recently added Ginger, This Is The Life, Paddy O'Day and Little Miss Nobody to my Jane Withers collection, I had pretty good expectations for Angel's Holiday. However, I found the film difficult to follow with a pretty dull storyline. I'm giving the film three stars for Jane and Jane alone, even though her talents are pretty wasted in this film. Check this film against Little Miss Nobody, which has a heavy dose of pathos, but also the whole gangster thing going on along with some very funny scenes.

This film just had a very "low budget" feel to it (granted, Jane's films were B movies shot on a "cheap" lot at Fox...but this one has an extra low budget feel to it.) I guess they were targeting kids in the 30's who were into Gangbusters, but the film centers around a film star who seems to have no other career but to keep trying to disappear for publicity stunts (why does no one at ALL recognize her in the train if she's so famous?) Jane is the sidekick to the reporter who happens to be an old flame of this star. The whole thing is fairly boring for kids (and I watched it with my 8 and 9 year olds who have seen Jane's other films and liked them a lot.)

If you're a die hard Jane Withers fan, and I am, you'll probably want to add this one to your library, just for Jane's performances alone. However, if you're just looking for a good example of her films, try Ginger or one of the other above mentioned titles and skip this one.