Public Wedding

This B picture from Warner Brothers is primarily made to exhibit the talents of some players that the Brothers had high hopes for, Jane Wyman and William Hopper. Both made successes of themselves but not at Warner Brothers.

Public Wedding is the story of conman Berton Churchill in a role that normally would be reserved for Raymond Walburn as a man with an ever flowing spiel of con and Jane Wyman as his stepdaughter whom he has schooled in the arts. They've got a sideshow exhibit of a whale's mouth that's circling the drain financially. Churchill hits on an idea to hold a public wedding. The idea being who doesn't like to go to a wedding and enjoy the reception afterward. Wyman will be the bride and at the last minute they rope in struggling young artist William Hopper for the groom.

I'll say no more because it really gets hard to follow as Wyman and Churchill go through an amazing string of cons at which Hopper just looks bewildered by. Some of them are even designed to benefit him. Along the way Marie Wilson and her ingenuous manner get swept up in all this.

Wyman at this beginning of her career was getting roles at Warner Brothers that Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell were turning down. Like Olivia DeHavilland, Wyman kept trying to tell the Brothers she could do better. She didn't really until 1945 with strong leads in The Lost Weekend and The Yearling. But she moves that dialog along at a clip the other two would envy.

William Hopper as we know was the son of Hedda Hopper and that fact alone would have guaranteed employment. Eventually his success came on TV's Perry Mason as Paul Drake. Here he's just one of several young leading actors coming up, among others was Ronald Reagan.

Churchill is the real star here. Usually he's stuffy upper class gentleman, here he goes to town with this bit of offbeat casting. You will love his scenes with Marie Wilson.

Public Wedding, a little gold nugget among the B picture dross.