Carnival Lady

When Allen Vincent's bank collapses, he tries to get a job. All his rich friends, however, will have nothing do with him, so eventually he winds up working at a circus. There he meets Boots Malloy.

It's directed by Harold Higgins. He entered the movies in the late 1910s, working as production manager and 'technical advisor' for Cecil B. Demille. He began to direct in 1922, and distinguished himself as one of the muscular male directors. His career began decline in early 1930s, and he died in 1938, age 47.

There's a lot of shots of carnival acts in this movie, some of them, like the high dive, shot from interesting angles. It's full of good humor and, for a Poverty Row pre-code, fairly entertaining, despite the mediocre acting of its leads.

Interestingly, if you pay attention, you'll see that the three males leads are named Tom, Dick and Harry! Well, the story centers on Tom. When the film begins, he has a nice job at a bank but when the bank fails, he's out of work and his fiancee calls it quits. So, with nothing holding him, Tom takes off to see the country and find a job. Eventually, he lands at a carnival where he soon becomes a big attraction doing high dives into a shallow pool. Along the way, he finds romance and a couple pals. There also comes....death!! But to find out about that and what happens when Tom meets up with his old society friends...watch the film.

Usually a low budgeted film from a so-called 'Poverty Row Studio' is a terrible thing. But this one is written well and NEVER has a dull moment. So despite the budget and a cast of no-namers, it's surprisingly good and is currently posted to YouTube. Well worth seeing and shockingly good...so much so I nearly gave it an 8.

This underrated poverty row gem has so many winning features i scarcely know where to begin. The story is romantic and dramatic, and there are dozens of wonderful documentary scenes of including a carnival bally, a rigged carnival midway game, Kit Guard as a carnival boxer who will go two rounds with anyone, a delightfully acrobatic vaudeville specialty dance, and an actual death-defying high diver, filmed from several angles. Add to that some nice railroad train footage, a cameo appearance by Angelo Rossitto the burly dwarf, a couple of obese freak-show actors, and a strange mitt-reader named Zandra and you have a great production with Willis Kent touches galore.

Special shout-out to Donald Kerr as Dick, the acrobatic dancer and sure-shot boxer. He had a long career playing carnival barkers and pitchmen and appeared in more than 500 movies and television shows -- but as of this writing, in 2022, IMDb could not even be bothered to clip out a still of him to place on his bio.