Bisbilhotices

Lee Tracy is one of the lost joys of the pre-Code era. He mostly played newspapermen (he was Hildy Johnson in the original Broadway production of The Front Page) with a sideline in press agents, and whatever his racket he epitomized the brash, fast-talking, crafty, stop-at-nothing operator. He makes Cagney look bashful, skating around in perpetual, delirious overdrive, gesticulating and spitting out his lines like an articulate machine-gun, wheedling and needling and swearing on his mother's life as he lies through his teeth. He was homely and scrawny, with a raspy nasal voice, and he always played cocky, devious scoundrels, yet you find yourself rooting for him and reveling in his sheer energy and shameless moxie. Audiences of the early thirties loved his snappy style and irrepressible irreverence; they loved him because he was nobody's fool. He's a rare example of a character actor—that guy who always plays reporters—who through force of personality, and the luck of embodying the zeitgeist, had a brief reign as a star.

In BLESSED EVENT he plays Alvin Roberts, a character based so closely on Walter Winchell that Winchell could have sued--but he probably loved it. When we first meet Alvin, he's a lowly kid from the ad department who has been given a chance to sub for a gossip columnist and gotten in trouble for filling the column with dirt—primarily announcements of who is "anticipating a blessed event" without the proper matrimonial surroundings. Soon he's become an all-powerful celebrity and made scores of enemies, including a gangster willing to bump him off to shut him up. There's a subplot about Alvin's ongoing feud with a smarmy crooner, Bunny Harmon, played by Dick Powell. Anyone who finds Powell in his crooning days repellent will appreciate Tracy's merciless vendetta. Actually, I think Powell is being deliberately irritating here—even in Busby Berkeley films he's not so egregiously perky and fey. He does sing one good song, "Too Many Tears" (a theme throughout the film), and a wonderfully witless radio jingle for "Shapiro's Shoes."

Alvin's standard greeting is, "What do you know that I don't?" The answer is nothing—at least not for long. But he's surrounded by worthy foils. Ruth Donnelly is both tart and peppery as Alvin's harried secretary ("You want to see Mr. Roberts? Oh, you want to sue Mr. Roberts. The line forms on the left.") Allen Jenkins, who keeps saying he's from Chicago even though his Brooklyn accent could be cut with a steak knife, plays a mug sent by his gangster boss to threaten Roberts. In a mind-blowing scene, Alvin terrifies the tough guy with a graphic, horrifying description of death in the electric chair. Tracy plays this monologue with unholy gusto; if you're not opposed to the death penalty, you will be after this. There's a funny scene in which Jenkins has to pass time with Alvin's sweet, clueless mother, who is continually thwarted in her desire to listen to the Bunny Harmon Hour on the radio. The usual suspects fill out the cast, those character actors whose very predictability is their glory: Ned Sparks the perennial gloomy pickle-puss; Frank McHugh the perennial hapless nebbish; Jack La Rue the perennial menacing hoodlum. Director Roy Del Ruth (who also helmed the wildly entertaining BLONDE CRAZY) keeps BLESSED EVENT going like a popcorn-maker; the sly, outrageous zingers just keep coming.

Lee Tracy's career never recovered after he was fired from MGM for a drunken indiscretion committed in Mexico. But I doubt he could have lasted long as a star after the Code anyway, since his films are gleefully amoral, frequently demonstrating that crime—or at least lying, cheating and riding roughshod over other people's feelings—pays. Every Lee Tracy vehicle contains a moment when he realizes he's gone too far, usually when the girl he fancies bursts into tears and tells him off. (Here he crosses the line in a big way when he betrays a desperate young woman who begs him not to reveal her pregnancy.) He looks suddenly abashed, protesting, "Gee, if I'd known you felt that way…I'd give anything not to have done that…Baby, sugar, listen…!" But two second later he's back to his old scheming ways. A reformed Lee Tracy would be like Fred Astaire with arthritis. Not that he isn't a good guy deep down…well, maybe. He has charm, anyway: an impish grin and twinkly eyes and boyish blond hair, like Tom Sawyer crossed with a Tammany Hall fixer. His reactions to sentimentality—to Dick Powell's cloying tenor or Franchot Tone in BOMBSHELL telling Jean Harlow he'd like to run barefoot through her hair—are delicious. He's salt and vinegar, no sweetening. In BLESSED EVENT Alvin has a fit when an editorial calls him the "nadir" of American journalism. Lee Tracy, on the other hand, represents is the zenith of the American newspaper movie.

Unless someone had spent some time with Admiral Byrd at the South Pole there ain't no way that any American would have not recognized that Lee Tracy's main character was based on Walter Winchell. Winchell had not started his radio show as of yet, but his column was the most read in the nation. And the term Blessed Event was a contribution that Winchell made to the English language still in use today.

The play had a 115 performance run on Broadway and Allen Jenkins and IsabellJewell repeated their roles on Broadway. Tracy with a quip for all occasions takes over Ned Sparks's column and immediately makes his paper the biggest circulation in town. He takes on all, gangsters, politicians, show business personalities with an eye for the salacious. A man like that makes enemies and Winchell had plenty in his life.

They also with a bit of future forecasting had him in a staged feud with another show business personality, a crooner played by Dick Powell in his film debut. Powell because this was his debut was no one that Winchell would have bothered with in real life. Powell's character was based on a combination of Rudy Valle and Russ Columbo both who led their own orchestras as Powell's character Buddy Harmon does. In real life Winchell would be in a bogus feud with bandleader Ben Bernie and the two would trade insults on their respective radio shows like Crosby and Hope.

Blessed Event would be one of Tracy's best film roles until he got banished to the Bs for his performance in Mexico on a hotel balcony letting it all hang out and urinating on some passing Mexican soldiers while on location for Viva Villa.

For a time this was dated, but as news gradually became more about the personalities delivering them, Blessed Event got right back in style. I think a young audience would really appreciate Blessed Event today.

The main reason people I know won't watch classic movies is because they "move too slow". Everyone I know this all old films are super-long, slow moving affairs with no action. I can't wait to show them Blessed Event.

Blessed Event (1932) is a terrifically fast, hilarious pre-code comedy with it's main character based on 30's tabloid writer Walter Winchell. Lee Tracy plays Alvin Roberts, the main character, who runs the "dirtiest" gossip column in New York, but events ensue that may have to cause him to give up his column.

If you have an opportunity to watch this amazing movie, do so. If you are already a fan of classics you will love it, and even if you've never watched an old movie, this is a great movie for anyone, if you thought all old movies were squeaky clean, slow, boring, and innocent, you're in for a surprise.

This isn't the first time I've raved about Roy del Ruth's Warners work prior to the emergence of the Hays Office, but it needs to be restated: few directors had as sure a hand with fast-paced, cynical comedy as Del Ruth. And, when teamed with the equally forgotten (and equally inspired) comedian Lee Tracy, what results is one of the best comedies of the 30s, as funny and audacious today as then. Tracy (who came West to Hollywood after originating the Hildy Johnson role in THE FRONT PAGE on Broadway) was the wisecrack-slinger all others are measured against; here he's so good, so inspired at mixing verbal and physical comedy, you'll be wondering how it's possible his career didn't soar for 25 years. (Besides his heavy drinking, which couldn't have helped him, he earned the wrath of Louis B Mayer during the shooting of VIVA VILLA by urinating on the Mexican army from his hotel balcony, effectively ending his career as a leading man. Or so the legend has it.) This is probably his best film, playing a Winchell-like columnist named Alvin Roberts, and Tracy plays him with such cheerful unscrupulousness you might almost forgot what a rat the real Winchell was. But this is pre-Code Warners, where even an unprincipled cur could be a hero so long as he scraped bottom with zest and pluck; don't be surprised at the many one-liners and situations that would become taboo in three years time: abortions, adultery, homosexuality and ethnicity are all fair game for BLESSED EVENT's satirical arrows, and only an insufferable prude would stifle his laughter. Not until Preston Sturges played chicken with the Hays Office in the early 40s would such darkly funny farce be allowed on the screen again. Keep an eye out for this one and prepare to become a Lee Tracy fan for life. As usual, Del Ruth's direction is dead on the money, while never calling attention to itself.

I was a bit torn on this one--I wasn't sure whether to give it a 7 or an 8. Either way, it's a very good little film. Apparently, James Cagney was supposed to originally star in the movie but Lee Tracy eventually got the role. This film is a very good fit for Tracy, as he was the only guy at Warner Brothers who could talk as fast as Cagney---or even faster! Tracy plays a Walter Winchell-like muckraking journalist. His scruples are minimal and he seems very willing to stretch the truth in order to tell a good story---even if it means hurting a few people in the process. Because of this, his fiancé isn't sure whether she should marry him and she begs Tracy to find another line of work. But, it's obvious Tracy LOVES the work--he lives, eats and breathes this sort of scandal. Along the way, there are a few juicy stories you see in the film--including a funny one with Allen Jenkins as a mobster and a distraught pregnant lady who is at her wits end.

The film works well because of its style and fast-paced script. A few very choice scenes also spice things up. The best is Tracy as he's giving a VERY vivid account of what it's like to be electrocuted--as Jenkins recoils in horror. My favorite was the cop at the end after he caught a shooter--seeing him slap the guy around was very funny (even if it does violate the crook's Constitutional rights). Plus, I saw one scene where Ned Sparks actually looked like he was about to smile! All in all, an incredibly breezy and enjoyable little film.

By the way, although the ending and overall message is very different, another great film about muckraking journalism is "Five Star Final" (1931) and it sure appears as if Warner Brothers was strongly inspired by this previous film to make "Blessed Event".