'Three Brats and an Old Bat' ... excuse me, I meant 'Three Kids and a Queen' has the general flavour of a Frank Capra movie or a Damon Runyon story, without being quite good enough to qualify as either. Actress May Robson had previously starred in 'Lady for a Day' -- a genuine Capra film of an authentic Runyon story -- and 'Three Kids and a Queen' feels suspiciously like a cynical attempt to repeat that film's success. Which would be fine, if this follow-up succeeded. It doesn't, very much.
After playing a beggar woman in 'Lady for a Day', here Robson plays the richest woman in the world. Oh, blimey! The plot requires Robson's character to be wealthy, but did she have to be the richest woman in the world? Even this is a rehash. In her earlier film 'The She-Wolf', May Robson had played the richest woman in the world as a manipulative miser. Here, in 'Three Kids and a Queen', Robson is once again playing the richest woman in the world ... but an altogether different one, and this time she's a kindly soul. Anyway, the world's richest woman Mary Jane Baxter (Robson) tumbles out of her carriage in Central Park, and is dazed. (Even in the comparatively innocent days of 1935, I find it implausible that such a wealthy person would go out unattended.)
She is found by a trio of picturesque waifs. Two of them are orphans, known as Blackie and Flash: apparently they've got no real names. Flash is played by Billy Benedict, the future Bowery Boy: his sobriquet 'Flash' is meant to be a joke, because he's a slow-coach. The third waif is Julia, played by Charlotte Henry (very pretty, but a bit too old to be playing waifs). All three of them live with Julia's widowed father, an excitable Italian barber played by Henry Armetta, who specialised in playing excitable Italian barbers. Armetta's character is named Tony Orsatti, which I suspect is an in-joke reference to the real Orsatti family who were major behind-the-screen figures in Hollywood at this time. (Charlotte Henry is playing Henry Armetta's daughter, but there's no way these two people can be related.) Anyway, the old lady is dazed from her accident, so the three waifs take her home with them. Because of her demeanour, they cry her 'Queenie'.
SPOILERS COMING. Next day, they see her picture in the paper. The richest woman in the world is missing, and the police think she's been kidnapped. The paper also reports that Mary Jane's family want her declared insane, so that they can seize her wealth. Now the brats want the old bat to vamoose, but she decides to stay. Next thing we know, some sub-Runyon crooks with deeze-dem-doze accents show up: they actually *do* kidnap the old broad, and they proceed to hold her to $1 million ransom. Allegedly hilarious complications ensue.
Because this movie's plot centres on kidnapping, I'm amazed that 'Three Kids and a Queen' got made at all in 1935. The Hays Office rigidly controlled the content of all Hollywood films at this time. In general, chief censor Will Hays preferred that crooks in Hollywood movies must get caught (or suffer some horrible fate) by the end of the film. However, kidnapping was a special case. The Hays Office's notorious Production Code singled out kidnapping as the one crime that must be shown never to succeed on screen. A movie villain of the mid-1930s might possibly get away with murder, rape, armed robbery ... but not kidnapping. Chary of the recent Lindbergh kidnapping and a few other such crimes, Hays was determined that no movie might inspire anyone in the audience to seek easy money by kidnapping someone.
If 'Three Kids and a Queen' had been a better film, it might have attracted more attention in its own day, and more wrath from the Hays Office. This film features an excellent cast, but all of them are poorly directed and given a weak script. John Miljan is well cast here, as a suave crook: Miljan was so devilishly handsome that he was always more plausible as a villain than as a goodie. Herman Bing plays, for once, a normal human being. This film is very badly paced, and the 'New York' exteriors are unconvincing, but on the basis of its cast I'll rate it 4 out of 10.
After playing a beggar woman in 'Lady for a Day', here Robson plays the richest woman in the world. Oh, blimey! The plot requires Robson's character to be wealthy, but did she have to be the richest woman in the world? Even this is a rehash. In her earlier film 'The She-Wolf', May Robson had played the richest woman in the world as a manipulative miser. Here, in 'Three Kids and a Queen', Robson is once again playing the richest woman in the world ... but an altogether different one, and this time she's a kindly soul. Anyway, the world's richest woman Mary Jane Baxter (Robson) tumbles out of her carriage in Central Park, and is dazed. (Even in the comparatively innocent days of 1935, I find it implausible that such a wealthy person would go out unattended.)
She is found by a trio of picturesque waifs. Two of them are orphans, known as Blackie and Flash: apparently they've got no real names. Flash is played by Billy Benedict, the future Bowery Boy: his sobriquet 'Flash' is meant to be a joke, because he's a slow-coach. The third waif is Julia, played by Charlotte Henry (very pretty, but a bit too old to be playing waifs). All three of them live with Julia's widowed father, an excitable Italian barber played by Henry Armetta, who specialised in playing excitable Italian barbers. Armetta's character is named Tony Orsatti, which I suspect is an in-joke reference to the real Orsatti family who were major behind-the-screen figures in Hollywood at this time. (Charlotte Henry is playing Henry Armetta's daughter, but there's no way these two people can be related.) Anyway, the old lady is dazed from her accident, so the three waifs take her home with them. Because of her demeanour, they cry her 'Queenie'.
SPOILERS COMING. Next day, they see her picture in the paper. The richest woman in the world is missing, and the police think she's been kidnapped. The paper also reports that Mary Jane's family want her declared insane, so that they can seize her wealth. Now the brats want the old bat to vamoose, but she decides to stay. Next thing we know, some sub-Runyon crooks with deeze-dem-doze accents show up: they actually *do* kidnap the old broad, and they proceed to hold her to $1 million ransom. Allegedly hilarious complications ensue.
Because this movie's plot centres on kidnapping, I'm amazed that 'Three Kids and a Queen' got made at all in 1935. The Hays Office rigidly controlled the content of all Hollywood films at this time. In general, chief censor Will Hays preferred that crooks in Hollywood movies must get caught (or suffer some horrible fate) by the end of the film. However, kidnapping was a special case. The Hays Office's notorious Production Code singled out kidnapping as the one crime that must be shown never to succeed on screen. A movie villain of the mid-1930s might possibly get away with murder, rape, armed robbery ... but not kidnapping. Chary of the recent Lindbergh kidnapping and a few other such crimes, Hays was determined that no movie might inspire anyone in the audience to seek easy money by kidnapping someone.
If 'Three Kids and a Queen' had been a better film, it might have attracted more attention in its own day, and more wrath from the Hays Office. This film features an excellent cast, but all of them are poorly directed and given a weak script. John Miljan is well cast here, as a suave crook: Miljan was so devilishly handsome that he was always more plausible as a villain than as a goodie. Herman Bing plays, for once, a normal human being. This film is very badly paced, and the 'New York' exteriors are unconvincing, but on the basis of its cast I'll rate it 4 out of 10.