The Hot Heiress

This is a very inconsequential film, a curio really. Ben Lyon is a riveter, and the film opens with him singing to his partner on the job. Rich girl Ona Munson is at a window, he steps in (the window) for lunch, and then takes her out on a double date to a Chinese restaurant that evening. She then invites him out to their country house to meet the folks, the double-daters also coming along. After complications, they get together again. That's the plot, but there's even less here than it sounds. The film gets by--barely--on two things. First there's Lyon's bright performance. Second is the unapologetic vulgarity, brashness and total lack of etiquette and decorum of the double-daters (Tom Dugan and Inez Courtney) and, to some extent, Lyons. For example, in the Chinese restaurant, the guys pass food back and forth to each other, ignoring the gals in between who try to grab some. The film's biggest hoot is the zany and uninhibited dancing in this scene. There's very little class snobbery displayed, the film being too trifling to have that sort of unpleasantness. Pidgeon, barely in the film, doesn't plot and scheme much, merely reveals at an inopportune moment that Lyon is a riveter. The best one can say about the film is that, though it's VERY slight, it's not quite as tiresome as it might have been.

This film is a Warner's B feature starring Ben Lyon, who never really did find his footing in talkies. Ben was probably best in Hell's Angels as the cowardly brother, Monte. Here he is quite a different sort of character. He's Hap, a riveter on the high rises going up in New York City. Hap is aptly named as he is truly a happy fellow, so happy he's given to singing while he works. Not surprisingly, the occupants of the surrounding apartment buildings do not appreciate the construction noise. Quite surprisingly, they are given to slinging disparaging comments at the workers as if that would actually make them pack up and go home.

One of the occupants of the neighboring apartments, socialite Juliette Hunter (Ona Munson), catches Hap's attention. They have a chance to meet when Hap is busy studying Juliette's finer points as she lounges in her negligee and he misses catching a red-hot rivet which lands in Juliette's bedroom. Hap and buddy Bill run over to retrieve the rivet from the apartment, and sparks fly at first meeting between Juliette and Hap. Hap knows the score, and tells Juliette they would never fit in each other's worlds. However, Juliette thinks they can make it work and meets him for a date that night. Of course, the problem isn't Juliette's broad-mindedness, it's her wealthy parents. Then of course there is Clay, the family-approved suitor for Juliette's hand who attempts to make mischief at every turn for the pair and who is played by the only actor with a sizable role in this film that you may have ever heard of - Walter Pidgeon. Thelma Todd shows up for short periods of time too as one of Juliette's friends, but she has few lines.

This is actually a nice little "feel good" film with light comic moments but nothing laugh out-loud funny, not any real melodrama, and plenty of likable characters. Even the most menacing character in the film - Pidgeon as Clay - really seems quite harmless here. This movie didn't do that well at the box office for exactly that reason - it was harmless light fun. As the Great Depression began to take its toll on the public's movie-going mood in early 1931, they preferred heavier fare such as Public Enemy.

I happened to read about "The Hot Heiress" while looking at a list of Clarence Badger's movies, so I decided to check it out. Pretty hackneyed plot, with a construction worker catching sight of a attractive gal in an apartment across the street, so they start up a relationship, but she has to hide his working-class background from her inner circle.

I think that it's safe to say "Dirty Dancing" did a much more interesting job with this kind of story (at the very least, it wasn't a musical). While this one contains some stuff that wouldn't have been acceptable under the Hays Code, it's mostly nothing interesting.

"The Hot Heiress" was one of 10 movies that Ben Lyon made in 1931. The popular leading man, though mostly in B movies, transitioned well from silent to sound movies with a good voice that could carry a tune along with his looks and persona. This is a fairly good comedy for its time. It's a slice of life about the wealthy and the common working folks. When romance crosses the two with Lyons' Hap Harrigan, and wealthy Ona Munson's Juliette, the sparks fly. Well, sparks fly quite a bit in this film with riveters working on the girders of a rising skyscraper.

Not many films have been made that show men - whether actors, stunt men, or real workers, plying their trades in the skeleton shell of a high rise building. That's quite interesting in itself.

Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, who were married in 1930, before WW II moved to England where they were hit performers and had a popular radio show for many years. Movie buffs will see Walter Pidgeon in an early sound film, as a jilted suitor of Juliette. Munson would die of a suicide OD in 1955 at age 51. And another cast member, Thelma Todd, as Lola, would die in four years at age 29 of carbon monoxide poisoning. Although there was never a court case, there was speculation over her death. Was it accidental, suicide or homicide?

Here are some favorite lines from this film.

Juliette, "Don't bother about money. Money never worried me." Hap Harrigan, "Yeah, money never worries them that's got it."

Hap Harrigan, "I got principles. Haven't you got principles?" Juliette, "Yes. But I've got a heart too."

Juliette, "I don't care about luxuries. I could live in a tent, if the plumbing was good."

High-rise construction worker Ben Lyon (as "Hap" Harrigan) notices "The Hot Heiress" Ona Munson (as Juliette Hunter) in an apartment window. Although he's only a common laborer, the pair fall in love. They begin dating, with Ms. Munson's snooty friends mistaking Mr. Lyon for an architect. At a swanky charity bazaar, Lyon's co-worker pal Tom Dugan (as Bill Dugan) gets drunk and reveals the truth about Lyon being poor, to Munson's romantic rival, a well-heeled Walter Pidgeon (as Clay).

Lyon, who found success with "Hell's Angels" (1930), is sure-footed on the construction beams, but not a memorable singer. The Rogers & Hart songs weren't their best. Leading lady Munson, from the stage, was most memorable as the veteran prostitute "Belle" in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). The film's staging wasn't bad for 1931, but everything else is ordinary. Lyon's character "Hap" Harrigan has nothing to do with the plainclothes adventure hero "Hop" Harrigan, who was popular in the 1940s.

**** The Hot Heiress (3/28/31) Clarence Badger ~ Ben Lyon, Ona Munson, Tom Dugan, Walter Pidgeon