The Saturday Night Kid

Clara Bow and Jean Arthur both started starring in movies around 1924. Bow was 19 and Arthur was 24. In 1927, Bow reached super-stardom as the "It" girl in "It" and playing in first Academy Award Winning movie "Wings." So, now two years later you have superstar Bow, age 24 and star Arthur age 29 playing sisters.

Oddly, Arthur seems to be playing the younger sister. In the opening scene, Bow brazenly pulls up Arthur's dress and reveals Arthur's underwear for the camera. She accuses her sister of stealing her "step-ins". It establishes Clara as the dominant personality.

Later, there's a wonderful scene where both are in their underwear about to go to bed. Arthur has just stolen Bow's boyfriend. Bow prays, while Arthur hops into bed. She moans innocently, "I can't help it if he like me more than you." Bow snaps back, "Shut up, I'm saying my prayers." Bow is strong and gives a great performance, but its Arthur with a thin, almost squeaky, voice who steals every scene.

The movie moves briskly with nice scenes in a department store, on the street and on an apartment porch beneath what could be the Brooklyn Bridge.

Nice comic support is given by Edna Mae Oliver who plays a store manager putting on a pageant for Goldberg's, the store where the sisters work. In the play that she puts on, she casts Arthur as virtue and Bow as pleasure to show the triumph of virtue over pleasure. This is ironic as in the movie, they are playing the opposite roles.

Charles Sellon, the unforgettable Mr. Muckle in W.C. Fields "Its a Gift," also gives a great performance. He's gambler-neighbor who cons Arthur to give him money by reassuring her, "With me its not a gamble, but an investment." Bow would go on to make eight more films over the next four years and then quit movies forever in 1933 at the age of 28. On the other hand, Jean Arthur continued starring for twenty more years in classics like "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".

Some people will be disappointed because the film is pretty light weight. It is barely over an hour and basically climaxes just when it is getting most interesting. Still, watching Bow at the top of her game and Arthur rising to match her is delightful.

I have liked Jean Arthur for a long time and Clara Bow since I got to know her more recently and I wish I could rate 'The Saturday Night Kid' higher than 5 stars, but it really isn't a particularly good film. Bow is playing the responsible, honest sister of Arthur. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her acting or her voice, which some critics disliked. Both are good, and I enjoyed watching her as Mayme. But almost everything else in this film simply does not work. Judging by Arthur's performance here, you would never believe she would go on to become a star most often playing working girls with a heart of gold. In 'The Saturday Night Kid' her role as Janie is thoroughly negative: She is a devious sneak and a thief. That is of course not a bad thing in itself; most films have at least one villain. What is bad about it is that Arthur's acting is not up to the role. She gives the impression of unintentionally making her character even less likeable than it is in any case (I think that's mainly because of one factor: In her later films she used her grating voice to great comic effect; her, she is just whining). As for the others, Edna May Oliver is overacting and Jean Harlow fairly unremarkable. The male actors did not really register with me. The plot is in principle not bad, but director A. Edward Sutherland fails to give it the tempo and sparkle it demands. I caught myself glancing at my watch several times. The shortcomings of this picture have therefore nothing to do with the fact that it is an early talkie marred by technical problems. Rather, the responsibility lies with Arthur, who had not yet found her voice, and Sutherland, who spoiled a fundamentally good plot.

In THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID, Clara Bow plays Mayme, a salesgirl who's in love with a fellow clerk named Bill (James Hall). Her sister Janie (Jean Arthur) also has eyes for him and schemes to snare for herself. The scenario is ordinary and the resolution is both banal and predictable. Clara Bow's performance in her third talkie is good, proving she could easily handle sound. Unfortunately, her role is, for the most part, colorless and inhibited. Mayme lacks the free-spiritedness and boldness of such roles like Alverna in MANTRAP and Betty Lou in IT; she's just a blandly virtuous heroine searching for true love. It doesn't help that her leading man Hall is uncharismatic and dull.

Occasionally, however, Bow gets to shine. She displays her comedic flair in some funny sequences, particularly a scene where she tries to help the inexperienced Hall in a difficult task without making him look incompetent. Bow also exhibits a flash of her effervescent "It" persona in a flirtatious chasing sequence. And in her big dramatic moments, Clara is persuasive and invigorating, making one regret she rarely had the opportunity for substantial dramatic material.

Jean Arthur is delightfully perfidious as Janie. Among the supporting players, Edna May Oliver as Mayme's snooty, imperious supervisor Miss Streeter and Charles Sellon as Lem Woodruff, the fumbling proprietor of the boardinghouse Mayme, Janie, and Bill live in, stand out. In an early film appearance, Jean Harlow has too minute a role to create any impression.

Overall, THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID is a pedestrian movie that doesn't take full advantage of Bow's talents. Considering that many of Clara Bow's films are lost or deteriorating, however, one should be grateful that this film has been recently restored.

Shopgirl sisters, one fun loving but virtuous (Clara Bow), the other a conniving, selfish brat (Jean Arthur) are in love with a fellow Ginsberg department store employee (James Hall). Trite screenplay, lousy production values, terrible directing. Bow only really becomes interesting in the second half where she's finally given interesting things to do. Jean Arthur is quite good as the dissembling brat sister. James Hall is dull. Edna May Oliver does her thing (which I love) in her talkie debut, and an unbilled (and very young looking) Jean Harlow has a tiny but memorable speaking part (her first). Ultimately, this is for Bow fanatics only (I raise my hand), and for those who want to see the earliest sound film appearance of the fully formed Jean Harlow persona.

THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID (Paramount, 1929), directed by A. Edward Sutherland, might have been an appropriate title for a jazz-age movie about a fun-loving party girl meeting and dancing with an assortment of young men every Saturday night. For this feature, the title is used for only a remake of a recent silent feature about shop girl sisters in LOVE 'EM AND LEAVE 'EM (Paramount, 1926) starring Evelyn Brent, Lawrence Gray and Louise Brooks, directed by Frank Tuttle. Rather than having those three leading players reprise their roles in the latest sound edition based on the popular play by George Abbott, it was given to Clara Bow, James Hall and Jean Arthur instead. Having recently played a department store girl already in IT (Paramount, 1927), the movie that gave Bow her signature name as The "IT" Girl, it might have been more interesting to see how the movie might have turned out had Clara Bow starred in the sound remake of IT instead.

The basic plot deals with the Barry sisters, Mayme (Clara Bow) and Janie (Jean Arthur), a couple of New York City shop girls working for Ginsberg Department Store, residing in an apartment building overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Living next door to them is William Taylor (James Hall), a young clerk promoted to floorwalker at the same store, who happens to be loved by Mayme. After rising at 6:30 a.m. to prepare themselves for another day's work, the trio leave together, with Mayne and Bill traveling by bus while Janie hitches a faster ride in somebody else's automobile. As the employees gather together at a staff meeting headed by Mr. Ginsburg (Hyman Meyer), Miss Streeter (Edna May Oliver), the store's "oldest employee," arranges for the staging of an Employee's Welfare Club pageant. Janie, elected treasurer, uses the club money to give to landlord, Lem Woodruff (Charles Sellon), a bookie who cheats her of her winnings at off-track horse racing. Aside from having Mayme take the blame for the stolen money and talking her way out of staying late for inventory where Mayme fills in for her, Janie also takes further advantage of her sister by claiming Bill all to herself, causing friction for all concerned. Also in the cast are Ethel Wales (Lily Woodruff); Irving Bacon (Mr. McGonigle) and Mary Gordon. The blonde shop girl Hazel Carroll is played by the uncredited Jean Harlow (1911-1937). She can be spotted in a couple of brief scenes behind the counter, and later with her back of head towards the camera as she speaks a few lines of spoken dialogue.

Standard routine plot clocked at 62 minutes, THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID indicates the story might have been slightly longer had it not been for the noticeable jump-cut by the mid-way point. Some years before Jean Arthur would prove her range in comedies for Columbia Pictures, and work in three classic productions under the direction of Frank Capra, her conniving character gathers the most attention here, even though she might seem out of character by those familiar with her latter screen work. Arthur would return to shop girl/ department store roles to better advantage in EASY LIVING (Paramount, 1937) and THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (RKO Radio, 1941), the latter highly recommended viewing. James Hall, the male co-star appearing much older than his true age, gets by with his man-in-the-middle-type performance. He would later appear opposite Jean Harlow in HELL'S ANGELS (United Artists, 1930), the epic war-drama that elevated Harlow from bit player to leading role status. Better known by film historians more for her silent productions than those produced during the sound era, THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID indicates how Bow might have succeeded better and longer in talkies had there been better scripts or more challenging roles in both comedy and drama to fit her needs. Quite good in comedy, Bow has her limited range here amusingly playing a gym appliance demonstrator at the store. Bow demonstrated her ability as a fine actress in both CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) and HOOPLA (1933), for Fox Studios before retiring from the screen forever. Yet her character as played in THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID is very much Bow material carried on from some from the silent movie era. Never distributed to video cassette, DVD nor presented on cable television, the film overall is a worthy rediscovery, especially those interested in the early films and career of both Jeans, Arthur or Harlow, or the "It" Girl Clara Bow with a new title name as "The Saturday Night Kid." (**)