La pauvre millionnaire

...It doesn't entirely work, unfortunately. Fredric March is excellent, as always. What a fine and versatile actor! And Virginia Bruce is winning, as she always was. She plays an heiress, he a newspaper reporter sent to get a story about her. (This aspect presages the Bette Davis movie "Golden Arrows.") Eugene Palette, always a treat, plays his editor.

Bruce is not an ideal screwball heroine, unfortunately. Her pale, wistful beauty doesn't really lend itself to the genre, though she is dine in the movie. Patsy Kelly is hilarious as her pal: Bruce has sailed to Manhattan in her yacht while granddaddy is away. She finds herself in the City with no money. At a diner (kind of an Automat but not really) she and Kelly scam some food. Kelly picks her up! "If you don't have anywhere else to go, you can spend the night at my place." Kelly's ostensible romantic interest is Alan Mowbry, a neighbor who is studying to become a chiropractor by mail. What a couple they make! Back at the store where Kelly works, which Grandpa owns, we see Kelly demonstrating a device called "Vibrato." It's a kind of Sapphic intimation of the Vega-Meta-Vitamin sequence decades later from "I Love Lucy." The movie has a sterling supporting cast, which also includes Nancy Carroll, delicious as a jealous, catty fellow saleswoman.

It also, unfortunately, has afar too lengthy and pointless scene with Bruce and march at a skating rink. Why it was allowed to go on so long is a mystery. (There is a similar scene in one of Irene Dunne's lesser comedies -- "Joy of Living," I think.) The movie begins in a stylish, chic manner but it loses its way. It could have been in the top tier but as it is it's still fun.

The part of the runaway heiress would have been right up Nancy Carroll's alley. Likewise, I think Virginia Bruce might have been more convincing in Ms. Carroll's part as a scheming shop girl that puts on airs. Ms. Bruce just didn't have the same air of mischief that Nancy Carroll did that could have really added a needed touch of spice to this movie.

Yes, there are similarities to "It Happened One Night" as everyone else has mentioned. There's a runaway heiress, a reporter in the know (Frederic March as Bill Spencer) that winds up falling for said heiress, even the heiress running away from the overbearing elder of the family - in this case her grandfather. However, everything else is pretty unique. In IHON Claudette Colbert's character was forced to live like an ordinary Depression era American in order to blend in with the crowd enough that she could get to her fiancée undetected by her father. Here, Joan Butterfield (Virginia Bruce) has an end goal of being one of those average Americans and standing on her own two feet.

The delight is in the details here - There's Patsy Kelly as Joan's friend, shop girl Peggy O'Brien, demonstrating a vibrating weight loss machine at work and when the electricity goes out in her small apartment, plugging into the flashing sign outside her window. Of course now it takes twice as long to cook dinner and all of her lamps are flashing on and off. Ms. Kelly is practically the third lead here, and her comic performance as Joan's mentor at living the working class life is pitch perfect. She's noisy and assertive as usual, but she doesn't go overboard. Alan Mowbrey as Peggy's boyfriend, a 40-something chiropractic student living across the hall from Peggy that works nights, is a great comic touch. The two humorously meet on the stairwell each evening for a passionate kiss, he as he heads off to work and she as she heads home from work. Not to be overlooked is Eugene Palette as Bill Spencer's perpetually agitated editor. He and March inflict every comic verbal insult possible on one another yet they just can't seem to live without one another - much like Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. In fact, I found that Palette and March had much more chemistry together than did Frederic March and Virginia Bruce.

This is one film where the scenery along the way is much more interesting than the ultimate destination as I felt the conclusion landed with a thud and seemed rather forced. Still I'd recommend it just for all the goofy stuff that you could only find in Hal Roach productions in the 30's. Ultimately it's a satisfying feel-good little film.

Hounded by the press, an heiress escapes from her stifling, pampered life and takes a job in her own department store.

Produced near the tail-end of the era of screwball comedies, THERE GOES MY HEART is certainly more enjoyable in its parts than in its whole. The film's plot is very silly and much too derivative of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934). Situations seem a bit forced and the comedy does not always flow very easily.

This unease attaches itself to the lead players. Distinguished actor Fredric March, playing a strong-willed reporter, seems rather unsteady with all the fatuous behavior about him. But at least he gets to indulge in a bit of energetic acting. Unlucky Virginia Bruce, while lovely, gets to be little more than a mannequin, her comic lines few and far between.

The film's real joviality comes from its supporting actors. Loudmouthed Patsy Kelly is wonderful as the noisy shop clerk who becomes Miss Bruce's pal--watching Patsy trying to recover her missing food in a cafeteria, or attempting to sell a vibrating belt exerciser, are comic highlights. Elderly Claude Gillingwater plays Miss Bruce's grumpy millionaire grandfather. Blustery Eugene Pallette is perfect as March's apoplectic editor.

Smaller roles are also well-cast: British Alan Mowbray as Patsy's chiropractic beau; preppy Arthur Lake as March's faithful photographer; chittering Etienne Girardot as Gillingwater's diminutive factotum; and J. Farrell MacDonald as a highly suspicious cop. Robert Armstrong--his glory days as Carl Denham, Kong's captor, half a decade behind him--is completely wasted in his tiny turn as a private detective.

Movie mavens will have no difficulty in spotting two wonderful performers making unbilled appearances: no-nonsense Marjorie Main shows up as a Butterfield's customer intent on buying a ‘fireless cooker' from Miss Bruce; and in the film's final moments look for silent screen clown Harry Langdon in a delightful cameo as a most helpful parson.

I think I liked this movie despite the rather formulaic and ridiculous plot because both Viginia Bruce and Frederic March did such a wonderful job with this romantic comedy from Hal Roach Productions.

Virginia is the grand-daughter of a very wealthy but extremely overprotective man. He won't let her go anywhere without him and sees danger around every corner. As a result, she is smothered and bored--aching to live a real life. She escapes and establishes a new identity as a regular working girl. However, reporter Frederic March finds out about the ruse and wants to exploit the woman for a buck. However, once they meet, sparks begin to fly and he is torn between riches and his new love.

You know about where the movie will end--after all, it's a formulaic romantic comedy from an era when the movies never dared stray from the expected course. However, how delicately and believably the stars follow this formula is what makes this film so worth watching. A cute and satisfying little film.

By the way, at the very end there is a cute little cameo by the silent screen star Harry Langdon as the preacher. While his best years in movies were long behind him, he did continue to do small roles in a variety of films over the years.

Though the gimmick of the runaway heiress was beginning to wear thin by 1938, There Goes My Heart still is entertaining enough with a sparkling cast going through it's usual paces.

Virginia Bruce is our heiress in this one and reprising his role of hard hitting reporter from Nothing Sacred is Fredric March. Two leads of this magnitude is not usual for the Hal Roach studio which normally was doing two and three reel comedies. But even though this is recycled material it still is served up rather nicely. Best scene for March and Bruce is at the skating rink playing musical chairs on roller skates. March is good, but this was the kind of material Cary Grant would have relished.

Hal Roach did give his director Norman McLeod a fabulous supporting cast to work with all going through their various screen images that we love. Best in the group is Patsy Kelly playing the shop-girl who happens to work in Bruce's grandfather's department store and who takes in Bruce not knowing who she is and gets her job at the store. Nancy Carroll the former silent screen star is a jealous co-worker and Irving Bacon is the sexually harassing supervisor.

Others in this incredibly good cast are Claude Gillingwater as Bruce's tycoon grandfather, Eugene Palette as March's editor, Arthur Lake as March's friend and newspaper photographer and Alan Mowbray as Kelly's boyfriend studying to be a chiropractor. Yes, Alan Mowbray and Patsy Kelly as a couple. Until i saw this film I never would have believed them as a screen team. Patsy's best moments are demonstrating an exercise machine at the store. You should also see newly hired sales person Virginia Bruce waiting on Marjorie Main.

At the very end of the film, former silent screen comic star Harry Langdon plays a minister. At this point in his career, Langdon was accepting any kind of work and part he could get. Nothing especially hilarious about his performance, it's too brief and he's surrounded by too many other high caliber performers in this cast to shine in any way.

It's not one of Fredric March's best films, but it's still amusing enough and the ensemble can't be beat.