User Reviews

Mitzi Gaynor and Scott Brady starred in this 1952 Damon Runyon tale involving gangsters and some good people.

When Brady is returning from Florida, as the heat from the commission investigating him has been turned off, he runs into Georgia hick Mitzi Gaynor. Feeling sorry for her, this bookie brings her back to New York only to realize that she is a 20 year old girl. He sets her up for dancing and naturally being Mitzi Gaynor, she succeeds.

As he falls in love with her, he will incur the wrath of his jealous girl who will turn the tables on him.

Gaynor was just wonderful in her dance sequences. Mitzi Green is in fine form in a supporting performance as the mob's moll who helps both Gaynor and Brady as the two fall for each other.

Very light and amusing entertainment. Look for 2 brief scenes by Charles Bronson as a mobster.

Milo O'Shea handles his role as a police officer effectively.

In "The Big Street" (based upon Runyeon's short story "Little Pinks"), busboy Henry Fonda pushes crippled nightclub singer (Lucille Ball) from New York to Florida in a wheel chair. In "Bloodhounds of Broadway", Georgia country bumpkin Mitzi Gaynor leads gangster Scott Brady to U.S. Route 1 which heads to New York (we know this, because a sign on the Georgia portion of Route 1 indicates it goes to both Washington D.C. and New York), and ends up joining them there. Kindhearted Mitzi Green takes her in, makes her give up her gingham and pigtails for a more worldly nightclub look, and before you know it, Gaynor is on-board to headline a show in Brady's nightclub. This makes Brady's mean-spirited girlfriend Marguerite Chapman very angry, and she threatens to turn states evidence over to have Brady sent up the river for running a horse racing syndicate. But, while Brady knows he faces certain jail time, he realizes that he loves Gaynor, and she realizes he needs to face a limited sentence in order to go on with his life. Will he show up in court on time before nasty Chapman gets there to spill the beans on him? The bloodhounds in the title are just that, two actual hunting dogs that Gaynor brought along with her. (Convienantly, they happened to be sleeping in Brady's car when they started off for U.S. 1). Cute little things, swallowing up sleeping pills and growling at Brady when they wake up. But Gaynor can sing them to sleep, which also works on stage, as they like there like lumps as Gaynor performs a musical number. She looks nothing like Nellie Forbush in the movie of "South Pacific", but gives a sweet, perky performance that is typical of the Fox movie musical heroine of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Richard Allan, Gaynor, and Mitzi Green perform a lively version of "I've Got a Feeling You're Fooling" (from "Broadway Melody of 1936"), while Gaynor and little Sharon Baird perform a cute number called "Cindy" which has some nice acrobatic dancing by Baird. "Eighty Miles Outside of Atlanta" and "Jack of Diamonds" are nice production numbers. The first one is a hillbilly song, not unlike "You Can't Kill My Hillbilly Heart" from the Rosalind Russell musical "The Girl Rush" (1955) and most of the score of "Li'l Abner", while "Jack of Diamonds" has no relation to the gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, but is fun just the same.

Brady is fine as the gangster, but of the supporting players, Green and Wally Vernon stand out. Marguerite Chapman plays a one-dimensional harpy typical in these types of films, but gets her comeuppance in a nice fight sequence with Gaynor's take no prisoners character who simply has had enough of her. I've seen many film versions of Damon Runyeon's stories, and others stand out in my mind as better. Bee Humphries is funny in the opening sequence as Apple Annie, a Runyeon character from "Lady For a Day" (and later "A Pocketful of Miracles"), whom, like Nicely Nicely Johnson (from "The Big Street" and "Guys and Dolls") made an appearance in an unrelated Runyeon story. Although she does pop up briefly towards the end, I wished to see more of her, and more of the Broadway lights, which sadly are minimal.

I looked in vain for any trace of Runyon here. True, there are a pair of bloodhounds and true, they do migrate to New York from Georgia but that's where Fox and Runyon part company. It's difficult to believe that not only were major studios turning out hoke like this in the fifties but that audiences were actually sitting still for it. It seems that there WERE musicals around this time that really were tuneful and entertaining - Singin' In The Rain, Lili, Small Town Girl, I Love Melvin, On Moonlight Bay, and more but significantly none of the above emanated from Fox who had certainly turned out their share of memorable fodder featuring the likes of Alice Fay, Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Tyrone Power et al. This was probably just a glitz.