With Love and Kisses

It's apparent someone thought that Pinky Tomlin, the singer-songwriter, was tailor-made for countrified musicals, but this Poverty Row effort, while it may have played encouragingly in the rural States Right circuit at the time, certainly hasn't aged well. Pinky is an aspiring songwriter in Arkansas, who tunes into Richmond Kane's radio program to see if he's going to sing Tomlin's song. He does, but claims he wrote it himself. Pinky takes the train to New York and confronts Kane, gets thrown into jail twice, meets Arthur Housman there (doing his drunk act), who's the brother of co-star Toby Wing. Through various ill-defined plot devices, Pinky winds up writing songs for the Mob in New York in an apartment with a cow, until the whole thing is settled out at the end.

The songs, co-written by Tomlin, are all right, although like the rest of his catalogue, have not aged well. Director Leslie Goodwins was a competent director of series comedy shorts and later tv comedy (he ended his career directing series like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and F TROOP, but his feature work never got above the B ranks, and even though he worked a lot for RKO, it was often for the Mexican Spitfire series.

This movie calls for some major comedy players with big reactions, and, alas, it never gets any better than Mr. Housman, who does some nice work, both in drunk and sober mode, but it isn't enough. Mr. Tomlin was left with a mild, pleasant personality, a good voice, and a Southern twang in his voice. It was enough for a minor career in entertainment, but not enough to sustain a career in the movies -- or even this movie.

I really didn't know who Pinky Tomlin was when I stumbled on this film, I bought it (it's available on dvd from Alpha quite inexpensively) due to the fact that Toby Wing, the blonde chorus girl who became well-known in the 1930's and today to movie buffs despite rarely playing anything but bits and cameo roles, is the leading lady. What a surprise to find this is a very enjoyable little movie. Pinky Tomlin was a moderately popular male vocalist of the day who hit pay dirt by writing the classic "The Object of my Affection". He was one of the very first singers to write most of his own songs. All of the songs in the movie are written by Tomlin, including one performed by The Peters Sisters, an obscure but excellent African-American trio. These songs sound like something that could have been written decades later, particularly the easy listening pop of the 1950's, and are considerably better than most tunes you find in B movies of the era. Tomlin plays a hick in Arkansas who sends one of his songs to a popular radio crooner in New York. When he hears the singer performing it on the radio - and claiming to have written it ! - he hocks the family cow to pay for a railroad ticket to the Big Apple and confront the slick singer (Kane Richmond, usually a hero in B movies of the era but here a sleazy singer). Tomlin also runs into a pretty city girl (Toby Wing) he met back home when she passed through town needing directions, coincidentally she's a singer too, in nightclubs, and Tomlin works up a hit for her as they plot to get his rights to his song back. This movie is so brief and moves so fast you can't hardly complain. Tomlin sings very well and if he's nothing to look at, he's a more agreeable presence than some of "hick" types who had longer careers in movies. I suspect both Richmond or Ms. Wing are dubbed given their "voices" are polished and neither did other vocals in film to my knowledge. The movie also looks pretty slick and with good sets for an independent "poverty row" effort for the era (some films of this nature have sets less detailed than the average high school play). This movie was apparently successful enough for Pinky and Toby to quickly be reteamed for another B, the more elusive SING WHILE YOU'RE ABLE.

Spec (Pinky Tomlin) is a country boy who is incredibly naive and a bit dopey. Shortly after the story begins, Spec hears a man on the radio singing his song AND he claims to have written it! Spec is angry...he wrote it and he wants credit. So, he leaves his farm behind and heads to New York. There, it's a fish out of water story...with this hayseed totally out of his element.

Eventually, some crooks end up buying this song and want to buy more...and dopey old Spec has no idea he's being robbed, as they're only giving him a pittance. Can he and his new business manager get a fair shake?

I think they made Spec a bit too dopey in this one. He only can write when milking his cow, so they arrange to send his cow to meet him in the city! Can anyone be that goofy?? Still, the music in this silly film is nice and it's all a harmless time-passer.