Big Hearted Herbert

Does Guy Kibbee, a popular 1930's character actor, have what it takes to carry the lead role in an entire movie? This film gives us the answer: No. But it's fun watching him try.

Kibbee plays the sarcastically-named Big Hearted Herbert, a blowhard who scares neither his family nor his daughter's fiancé with his incessant yelling and complaining. In most movies, Kibbee provides comic relief as a blustery background character, which is usually great. But his non-stop bellowing throughout an entire film is too much of a good thing, particularly because Kibbee's one-note acting style doesn't display at any sweet or lovable side of his personality. Only the eye-rolling and put-downs of the other cast members hint that Big Hearted Herbert is really a softy. It's kind of like watching Jackie Gleason play Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, except that the richer and more successful Big Hearted Herbert is a way less sympathetic character, and the more talented Gleason was able to demonstrate occasional warmth.

But despite this, the film is actually fun to watch. The cast does a great job of dragging Big Hearted Herbert into reluctantly accepting the lifestyles of his son and daughter. Apparently Herbert hates lawyers, which is a problem, because his daughter wants to marry one. (Imagine how many issues Big Hearted Herbert would have in the 21st century, when his daughter would want to become one!) And his son doesn't want to go into the family business that Herbert worked so hard to build. It's all mostly handled in a lighthearted way, except toward the end, when Big Hearted Herbert's wife has to threaten some drastic action to drag Herbert into developing a more enlightened viewpoint.

So spend an hour with this movie, have a very pleasant time, and gain a better understanding of why the talented Mr. Kibbee was relegated to minor parts for most of his career.

This movie is a perfect capsule of 1930s family life in middle America. You have the grumpy put-upon (todays type-A) up-by-the-bootstraps businessman perfectly embodied by the actor who had these parts cornered: Guy Kibbee (a rare breed unto himself, they don't make them like him any more). Harried, pompous, blustery & scared to death his world is going to collapse around him & his perfect little family because of an IRS audit.

Then there is his perfect family: Aline McMahon as his wise, witty & imperturbable wife, Junior who's just about ready for college but wants to get into his uncle's engineering business not dad's plumbing fixture manufacturing plant. There's curly blonde-headed sis who wants to marry the Harvard grad & there's the cute kid brother who never saw a banana that he didn't want to eat. Finally there's the highly opinionated but lovable housekeeper.

This could have as easily been a successful radio show or a long-running comic strip. The situations are hilarious, the lines are sharp & the performances are absolutely on target. Plus you get a glimpse of a life (granted it's through the prism of Hollywood, but no less distorted than today's sitcoms of dysfunctional therapy-addicted families) that has long been extinct. Just imagine! - a locally owned family run plumbing fixture manufacturing company. Manufacturing plants used to pepper this country once upon a time, especially in the Northeast & parts of the Midwest; self-sustaining communities abounded. Half of today's population would give anything to return to those days.

If that doesn't shed light on the great divide that is cleaving this country, nothing can.

Big Hearted Herbert (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Charming adaptation of the Broadway play about Herbert (Guy Kibbee), a self-made rich man who is always going off about how he didn't need college, how he had to teach himself everything and his ego has gotten to the point where his family can't take it anymore. With Herbert always screaming and throwing around demands, his wife (Aline MacMahon) decides to give him a taste of his own medicine. BIG HEARTED HERBERT is a comedy but I must admit that I didn't laugh a lot in it. There were a couple big laughs but for the most part I sat there watching the film and never really laughing throughout. So, how can I not laugh at a comedy and still enjoy it so much? Because the two leads are just so downright perfect that you can't help but get wrapped up in the charm of the situation. If you watch enough Warner movies on Turner Classic Movies then you're bound to be familiar with Kibbee who was one of their stock players and showed up in countless movies. He always plays the lovable older fellow but here the screenplay gives him a chance to shout and scream. He's constantly talking about how great he is and telling everyone what he had to do in his life and he expects those around him to follow what he says. This guy is certainly a jerk but Kibbee plays it so perfectly that you never hate him or get to the point where you hope someone punches him out. This is very important because the actor allows the character to really take shape yet he knows how to play it to make sure our feelings don't turn on him. MacMahon is also perfect in her part as the wife as she starts off putting up with the mess but when it's time for the tables to turn she really nails the comedy. I won't ruin what exactly happens but the final ten-minutes are great. This thing clocks in at just 59-minutes so there's really no character development or silly scenes added just to try and beef up the situation. Instead this thing stays pretty close to what you're imagine the story was like on Broadway and the two stars just make this a winner.

BIG HEARTED HERBERT (WB, 1934), directed by William Keighley, is a domestic comedy, one of many turned out by many film studios during the Depression era '30s. Clocked at an hour's length, the characters are fully developed during its opening minutes showing middle-aged Herbert (Guy Kibbee) constantly yelling, finding fault with everything from his family to his employees. A self-made man who is in charge of a plumbing factory, Herbert has two things he treasures most, a giant portrait of his father that hangs over the fireplace, and the cuspidor which gets in the way of everyone in the living room. His wife Elizabeth (Aline MacMahon) is a simple-minded and patient mother who accepts her husband for what he is. The family has three children, Alice (Patricia Ellis), an attractive 19-year-old blonde; Junior (Trent Durkin), who would rather go to college to become an engineer than carry on in his father's business; and Robert (Jay Eaton), the youngest with a round face and big smile, who not only enjoys eating bananas, but appears to be the only one of the siblings who worships his father, finding his mannerisms more amusing than threatening. Alice is engaged to Andrew Goodrich (Phillip Reed), a college graduate, and wants her fiancé and his parents (Henry O'Neill and Nella Walker) to meet the family. The dinner becomes a disaster, thanks to Herbert's constant roaring. When Herbert wants to bring one of his most important client and his wife (Hale Hamilton and Claudia Coleman) over to dinner so they could be in the company of "just plain folks," Elizabeth decides to turn the tables around by presenting the family to his Havens as "just plain folks," much to the dismay of Herbert.

Supporting players include Marjorie Gateson as MacMahon's sister; Robert Barrat as her husband; Joseph Crehan as the IRS man; and George Chandler.

Straight-forward story, amusing comedy that pre-dates many of those situation comedy shows produced for television told within 30 minutes. Guy Kibbee succeeds in making his unsympathetic character likable while Aline MacMahon, as always, brings sincerity to her role. Helen Lowell plays a once-a-week housekeeper who finds it difficult to remember her line, "Dinner is served," at the gathering of the future in-laws. She gives a performance that would have have been more suitable to the likings of Ruth Donnelly.

Not as laugh-filled as the domestic stars of that genre ranging from the comic supplements of WC Fields, the wholesomeness of Will Rogers, the sentimental knowhow by Marie Dressler or the wackiness of Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, but this production, based on the play by Sophie Kerr, combines a little of all, and thanks to the delightful team of the tall but sad-eyed Aline MacMahon and short, fat and bald Guy Kibbee, these two secondary scene stealers from the classic Depression musical, GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (1933), make this rarely seen production worth viewing.

A sort of domestic comedy that might have prospered into a film series, but as it stands, nothing developed. BIG HEARTED HERBERT was remade by Warners as FATHER IS A PRINCE (1940) with Grant Mitchell assuming the role as the self-centered, egotistical father. Both movies, along with other MacMahon-Kibbee domestic comedies, can be seen and compared whenever presented on Turner Classic Movies. (**1/2)

Alice MacMahon and Guy Kibbee made TEN films together! In this one, they are husband and wife Liz and Herbert Kalness. Daughter Alice is played by Patricia Ellis, and brings home the fiance. Sons Junior and Bob are played by Trent Durkin and Jay Ward. When Dad storms and yells, making a scene, the family decides to teach dad a lesson; when he brings home a client, they act the same way Dad did the night before, to give him a taste of his own medicine. It's a fun one! All done in 59 minutes.. a shortie from Warner Brothers. Directed by Bill Keighley... worked with some Huge stars, but never brought home the oscar. Sadly, Durkin died young at 19 in a terrible car accident; driven by Jackie Coogan's father. Patricia Ellis died at 53 of cancer.