Love Is a Headache

Remember that brief period of time when Franchot Tone was young, handsome, making good movies, and not yet destroyed by life? If you love him like I do, check out Love Is a Headache. It was before his infamous divorce and subsequent wrong paths, and he's at his handsome and charming best. In this romance, he's paired with Gladys George, an actress he bickers with as much as he woos. She's had a string of stage flops, and in an attempt to gain positive publicity before her new show opens, she adopts a pair of recently orphaned kids, Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler. Franchot is a newspaper man famous for telling it like it is, and he's been the one behind the negative theatrical reviews. He was also a friend of the kids' parents, so he doesn't want to see them taken advantage of just for publicity.

This one has some laughs, some cute parts, and a healthy enough dose of drama to make it feel like a grown-up movie. Both leads were enjoying their peaks in the 1930s, before age and life and newer stars took their places. Check this one out if you like stories about hardened hearts getting softened by kiddies, or if you like the cast. You'll also see Frank Jenks among the supporting players, as Franchot's completely inept sidekick who makes mistakes as easily as breathing, and Ralph Morgan, as Gladys's ardent admirer with no flaws other than the fact that he's not Franchot Tone.

TCM to the rescue again with another little gem from the "You Won't See This Anywhere Else" vault. From 1938, this is one of those films that has nothing to really recommend it, but is not offensive either. It can only be shown on TCM because no advertiser is going to pay money to put commercials on during its showing.

Mickey Rooney plays one of the adopted poor kids of a rich actress who only wants them for the good PR it will give her. (Will she come around for a happy ending? Hey, it was the Depression, what do you think?) This is some early Mickey from about the time he started his Andy Hardy phase. He's charming enough, as are the other actors. The writing is OK, as is the direction, but while everyone tries, the movie just plods along trying to make everyone feel good.

From late in the Depression, everyone in the film is depicted as either extremely rich, or extremely poor. But everyone has a hat! It was like the law in the 30's that everyone had to wear a hat when outdoors. Men, women, kids, cops, chauffeurs, milkmen, dockworkers, it didn't matter, they had to wear a hat. One line in the film has the rich adoptive Mom asking her new poor kids, "Are those the only clothes you kids have?" And Rooney answers, "No, we have hats!"

If you appreciate the old potboiler films of less than 90 minutes duration, you'll certainly be able to sit through this one, as it is better than many of its type. If you were raised on Star Wars films, you'll probably hate it.

Well, I have to go. Where's my hat?

This is yet another variation on a genre Hollywood used to make years ago: movies about tough guys - or women - who turn out to have a heart, often revealed through interaction with children. Wallace Beery specialized in that sort of role.

The script is weak, and the direction too often leaden, which really keeps this movie from amounting to anything memorable, despite the fact that the cast is all fine and all did much better work in other pictures.

It's just a shame someone couldn't have radically improved the dialogue, to give it a little punch. A better director would have asked for significant rewrites.

If the characters had had some depth, the actors could have done something interesting with them.

Gladys George is a fine leading lady of the stage. She's been in a string of flops recently. Franchot Tone is a Broadway columnist for a newspaper. Personally they like each other a lot. Professionally they fight like cats and dogs. He gets her fired from her latest show. Her idiot publicity man, Ted Healy (in his last role) has her adopt Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler.

And so on and so on. There are a couple of subplots, like ridiculously wealthy Ralph Morgan wanting to marry her. This movie looks like they started with the bare bones and kept adding stuff in a desperate attempt to bring it up to a length they could use. A lot of it doesn't work, especially the ending, Barnett Parker as Miss George's dull butler, and Tone's inconsistent performance.

Yet a lot of the details do work, enough to keep this working throughout. There are lots of excellent wisecracks, most of which, oddly enough, wind up in Virginia Weidler's mouth, and she delivers them well. It's a case.

In the late 1930s, MGM turned out some high-concept programmers that are fun to watch. None of these, to my knowledge, cause migraines-- just fits of laughter. Love Is a Headache is one of these charming films.

The story, which is rather simplistic, is about a fading actress (Gladys George) who adopts two street urchins as a publicity stunt. The urchins are portrayed by Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler, who convey a realistic and believable sibling relationship. (The studio would re-team Rooney and Weidler in a few other films, notably in an installment of the Andy Hardy series.)

The picture also benefits from the presence of MGM contract player Franchot Tone (who was Mr. Joan Crawford at this time). Tone plays Miss George's love interest and is in all likelihood going to become a daddy to the two urchins. It's nice to see him in more of a 'family'-type comedy.