Character actress Ruth Donnelly has been a favorite of mine ever since I first began watching classic movies as a child. There was something about her attitude and way of thinking that struck me as truly human, and in every film I've seen her in, she more than shares that quality with the audience. As I became more familiar with other character actors, I would often I do not wish that she would get the type of leading roles that RKO's Helen Broderick was getting due to their similar personas. Wild Bill's force in this Warner Brothers programmer, it is Donnelly who is officially the lead, working for the top-billed Margaret Lindsay and Warren Hull, decent people even though Lindsay's character is a bit of a social climber. Donnelly quits working for a couple who are too drunk to ride out a paycheck for her and starts working for Lindsey and Hull, turning their lives around and revealing her own private life in the process.
Competing with Donnelly for stealing the film are Ronnie Cosby as Lindsay's young son, a pre-teenager obsessed with black people (in a sweet, innocent way) and Arthur Treacher as the butler in Donnelly's former home who has a droll remark for every situation. Anita Louise co-stars as a young lady who is tied in with Donnelly's secret. when Donnelly exclaims to Treacher that she finds mother love movies hard to take in melodramatic, it's pretty clear what her secret is. That is given away even more by her devotion and adoration of the precocious Cosby who even manages to silence Treacher with his audacity. It's a mild-mannered comedy with dramatic twists that will keep you entertained. Donnelly is very down-to-earth, reminding me of older women relatives who could share their stories with humor and life lessons, making me want to be around them when other children my age were off elsewhere. It also made me wonder if this film was originally written for Aileen MacMahon, a character actress who managed to score a dozen leads in very similar programmers while under contract at Warner's.
Competing with Donnelly for stealing the film are Ronnie Cosby as Lindsay's young son, a pre-teenager obsessed with black people (in a sweet, innocent way) and Arthur Treacher as the butler in Donnelly's former home who has a droll remark for every situation. Anita Louise co-stars as a young lady who is tied in with Donnelly's secret. when Donnelly exclaims to Treacher that she finds mother love movies hard to take in melodramatic, it's pretty clear what her secret is. That is given away even more by her devotion and adoration of the precocious Cosby who even manages to silence Treacher with his audacity. It's a mild-mannered comedy with dramatic twists that will keep you entertained. Donnelly is very down-to-earth, reminding me of older women relatives who could share their stories with humor and life lessons, making me want to be around them when other children my age were off elsewhere. It also made me wonder if this film was originally written for Aileen MacMahon, a character actress who managed to score a dozen leads in very similar programmers while under contract at Warner's.