Blessed Event

Unless someone had spent some time with Admiral Byrd at the South Pole there ain't no way that any American would have not recognized that Lee Tracy's main character was based on Walter Winchell. Winchell had not started his radio show as of yet, but his column was the most read in the nation. And the term Blessed Event was a contribution that Winchell made to the English language still in use today.

The play had a 115 performance run on Broadway and Allen Jenkins and IsabellJewell repeated their roles on Broadway. Tracy with a quip for all occasions takes over Ned Sparks's column and immediately makes his paper the biggest circulation in town. He takes on all, gangsters, politicians, show business personalities with an eye for the salacious. A man like that makes enemies and Winchell had plenty in his life.

They also with a bit of future forecasting had him in a staged feud with another show business personality, a crooner played by Dick Powell in his film debut. Powell because this was his debut was no one that Winchell would have bothered with in real life. Powell's character was based on a combination of Rudy Valle and Russ Columbo both who led their own orchestras as Powell's character Buddy Harmon does. In real life Winchell would be in a bogus feud with bandleader Ben Bernie and the two would trade insults on their respective radio shows like Crosby and Hope.

Blessed Event would be one of Tracy's best film roles until he got banished to the Bs for his performance in Mexico on a hotel balcony letting it all hang out and urinating on some passing Mexican soldiers while on location for Viva Villa.

For a time this was dated, but as news gradually became more about the personalities delivering them, Blessed Event got right back in style. I think a young audience would really appreciate Blessed Event today.

"What do you want to interview Mr. Roberts about?" "Oh you know, how he lives, and where he goes, and what he thinks about." "My dear, you think they would print that in a high school paper?"

This is a satire of Walter Winchell, the ruthless gossip columnist who wielded great power for decades in the entertainment industry, and who by 1932 had already achieved celebrity. He's played here by slick talking Lee Tracy, a good fit for the role, but I found the character so unlikeable that when he was made out to be the good guy, it was tough to enjoy.

The character loves publishing secrets and personal details that ruffle feathers, e.g. Upcoming birth announcements ("blessed events") with due dates less than nine months after a couple got married. People sue the paper, but that just fans the flames and he goes merrily along raking in money (the $90,000 a year is over $2 million in today's money). His assistant (Ruth Donnelly) is feisty and a good supporting character, handling a deluge of phone calls and cracking jokes like "You want to see Mr. Roberts? Oh, you want to SUE Mr. Roberts? The line forms on the left." Unfortunately, the scenes of him frenetically operating in the newsroom got a little monotonous despite their energy level, with the exception of his rather gruesome description of electrocution to intimidate a gangster (Allen Jenkins).

Things go especially sour when the gossip columnist reports about a desperate young woman (Isabel Jewell) who's pregnant and literally just told him she's suicidal over the idea of people finding out. Instead of making this a point of reckoning for the character, the script pays lip service to a little guilt, then has him be the hero in standing up to gangsters as well as his rival (a crooner played by Dick Powell, in his very first film). By the end I had really tired of the character and how it was playing out, hence the middling review score.

Interesting quote about TV, pretty early for 1932: "Ask him about sex appeal by television." "By television? I'll tell you right now it'll never prove a popular method."

Fast paced and very clever Lee Tracy vehicle playing a Walter W. type gossip columnist with a grudge against "crooners"generally and one in particular played by Dick Powell. Definitely precode with dialogue and subject matter that would have been totally rejected just a few years later. One scene culminates in a phrase spoken by Tracy's"mother" containg a word that rocked the film world at the end of Gone With the Wind. Among other wonderful sequences watch for Tracy's evocation of a trip to the "hot seat", and Dick Powell's rendition of a singing commercial extolling the qualities of"Shapiro's Shoes". With Shapiro himeself beaming at his side. Do catch this film also a similar effort also with Tracey "The Half Naked Truth".

This isn't the first time I've raved about Roy del Ruth's Warners work prior to the emergence of the Hays Office, but it needs to be restated: few directors had as sure a hand with fast-paced, cynical comedy as Del Ruth. And, when teamed with the equally forgotten (and equally inspired) comedian Lee Tracy, what results is one of the best comedies of the 30s, as funny and audacious today as then. Tracy (who came West to Hollywood after originating the Hildy Johnson role in THE FRONT PAGE on Broadway) was the wisecrack-slinger all others are measured against; here he's so good, so inspired at mixing verbal and physical comedy, you'll be wondering how it's possible his career didn't soar for 25 years. (Besides his heavy drinking, which couldn't have helped him, he earned the wrath of Louis B Mayer during the shooting of VIVA VILLA by urinating on the Mexican army from his hotel balcony, effectively ending his career as a leading man. Or so the legend has it.) This is probably his best film, playing a Winchell-like columnist named Alvin Roberts, and Tracy plays him with such cheerful unscrupulousness you might almost forgot what a rat the real Winchell was. But this is pre-Code Warners, where even an unprincipled cur could be a hero so long as he scraped bottom with zest and pluck; don't be surprised at the many one-liners and situations that would become taboo in three years time: abortions, adultery, homosexuality and ethnicity are all fair game for BLESSED EVENT's satirical arrows, and only an insufferable prude would stifle his laughter. Not until Preston Sturges played chicken with the Hays Office in the early 40s would such darkly funny farce be allowed on the screen again. Keep an eye out for this one and prepare to become a Lee Tracy fan for life. As usual, Del Ruth's direction is dead on the money, while never calling attention to itself.

The main reason people I know won't watch classic movies is because they "move too slow". Everyone I know this all old films are super-long, slow moving affairs with no action. I can't wait to show them Blessed Event.

Blessed Event (1932) is a terrifically fast, hilarious pre-code comedy with it's main character based on 30's tabloid writer Walter Winchell. Lee Tracy plays Alvin Roberts, the main character, who runs the "dirtiest" gossip column in New York, but events ensue that may have to cause him to give up his column.

If you have an opportunity to watch this amazing movie, do so. If you are already a fan of classics you will love it, and even if you've never watched an old movie, this is a great movie for anyone, if you thought all old movies were squeaky clean, slow, boring, and innocent, you're in for a surprise.