Paddy O'Day (1935)

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Director:

Lewis Seiler

Writers:

Lou Breslow (writer)
Edward Eliscu (writer)

Release Date:

29 October 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Musical

Plot:

Withers is an immigrant who learns on arrival in the U.S. that her mother is dead. Friends help her survive as an entertainer...

Plot Keywords:

Character Name In Title

Cast

Jane Withers	...	Paddy O'Day
Pinky Tomlin	...	Roy Ford
Rita Hayworth	...	Tamara Petrovitch (as Rita Cansino)
Jane Darwell	...	Dora
George Givot	...	Mischa
Francis Ford	...	Office McGuire
Vera Lewis	...	Aunt Flora
Louise Carter	...	Aunt Jane
Russell Simpson	...	Benton
Michael Visaroff	...	Popushka Petrovitch
Nina Visaroff	...	Momushka Petrovitch

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Soundtrack:

I Like a Balalaika

The brunette answer to Shirley Temple

This is the charming little story of a small Irish girl with a big accent who travels to New York with her dog to join her mother. On the ship, she meets Rita Hayworth. After they dock, she is told that her mother is sick, and detained. She escapes from the immigration officials on a milk truck leaving Ellis Island, and makes her way to the mansion where her mother is a servant. However, once she arrives, she learns the terrible news that her mother is dead. She has no other place to go and no relatives back in Ireland, so the kindhearted servants decide to hide her at the risk of losing their jobs and being criminally prosecuted for harboring an alien fugitive. The other residents of the house are a young, bookish, scatterbrained man (Pinky Tomlin) and his two, crabby, domineering aunts. The little girl accidentally encounters the man, and they become friends. Eventually she reunites with Rita Hayworth, who Pinky Tomlin falls in love with. His new influences lead to rebellion against his aunts, and with his financial support, Rita Hayworth's brother is able to open a nightclub. All this is interspersed with occasional musical numbers, mainly sung by little miss Paddy.

This movie was made WAY before my time, but I'm guessing it was an attempt to cash in on the Shirley Temple phenomenon. It looked like the voices were entirely dubbed over, which I found interesting. I watched it through mainly just to gaze upon the beauty of Rita Hayworth, but also because I was a bit transfixed by Jane Withers. She was adorable. She was precocious. She also had that "so-cute-you-wanna-strangle-'em" quality that cynics will probably find unbearably annoying to watch. However, she was a good actress. I found the scene where she learns her mother is dead to be genuinely sad. Her final song and dance number in the movie is probably the cutest (or most annoying?) part.