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Reviews
Sweet Adeline (1934)
Irene Dunne and the music save it...
If not for her great voice and her usual charming performance, and of course Kern and Hammerstein's great music, this movie is total drivel. It's like Warner Bros. was trying to do 42nd Street or one of the Gold Diggers movies in an 1890's setting. And then they add stock players like Ned Sparks and Hugh Hubert who are both annoying as anything, playing the same dumb characters they do in every movie. Wini Shaw was good as usual, but it's annoying to see her singing and talking with a phony French accent. And Donald Woods was no great actor, he really couldn't hold his own next to Dunne. No wonder why he never made it big. The studio went all out on the sets and costumes though, which make the movie a little more enjoyable... It's just a shame that with such great music and production values and Irene Dunne as the star, that this movie didn't turn out better...
Woman Wanted (1935)
An action packed hour and seven minutes
I watched this movie mostly to see Maureen O'Sullivan and Joel McCrea starring together. Both of them are all but forgotten in today's world and they're not thought of as 'A' list classic Hollywood stars. However in 1935 both were at the top of their game, starring and co-starring in one movie after another. This MGM suspense/murder mystery/action film was a lot more entertaining than I expected. It moves at a fast pace and the script is pretty tight. O'Sullivan is the last actress you'd expect to see as a wanted murderess but that's exactly why it works. She's vulnerable yet tough and has the ability to say so much with her facial expressions, let alone the dialogue. McCrea as the dashing lawyer that comes to her aid is perfect. He's his usual, cool, everyman self, even though he's the hero throughout. I've always liked that about his performances, anything he does he makes believable. Try to catch it the next time it's on TCM.