Girl Missing (1933) User Reviews

Director Florey, writer Furthman add energy to Florida-set early crime programmer

[bmacv · 7/10 · 2 July 2003]

Motor-mouthed Glenda Farrell adds sass and vinegar to this better-than-most crime programmer dating from the early sound era. She and Mary Brian play a couple of New York gold-diggers stranded in Palm Beach when frustrated sugar daddy Guy Kibbee sticks them with an unpaid hotel bill. Spurred on by the prospect of a big reward, they get mixed up in the bridal-night disappearance of yet another gold-digger (Peggy Shannon), whom they know from her days in the kick line, but who managed to snag a millionaire (Ben Lyon).

In the course of their meddling, they encounter an old pal (Lyle Talbot) who seems anxious to get them out of town; a pair of overstuffed hams posing as a society couple (Helen Ware, Ferdinand Gottschalk); and a body in the hotel gardens, still smoking a cigar. Film buffs will catch brief appearances by Walter Brennan, Louise Beavers and Dennis O'Keefe.

Without ever really losing sight of its mystery plot or lapsing into the `comic,' Girl Missing brandishes a lot of racy, pre-Code wit, dished out mainly by Farrell. Most of the credit can no doubt go to scriptwriter Jules Furthman, whose credits include Shanghai Express, Bombshell, The Big Sleep and Nightmare Alley. The rest can go to Frenchman Robert Florey, whose directorial career may not be quite so distinguished but bears watching: Cocoanuts (the first Marx Brothers movie), the first `talking' Murders in the Rue Morgue, and a few noirs like Danger Signal and The Crooked Way. Girl Missing succeeds because of good teamwork, and it had a great team.

A couple of scheming gold diggers turn sleuth

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 26 June 2018]

Kay (Glenda Farrell) and June (Mary Brian) have gotten away from the chorus line in New York and are living it up in a posh Palm Beach hotel, but the price is leading on elderly wealthy Kenneth Van Deusen (Guy Kibbee), and hoping he will just continue to be led with no sexual payoff. He gets tired of the routine and leaves the girls owing a 700 hotel bill. Their solution is to find another wealthy guy, but this time the guy (Ben Lyon as Henry Gibson) is engaged. And he is engaged to somebody they both knew in the chorus line (Peggy Shannon as Daisy), but who snubs them by saying she doesn't know them. The girls have their problems solved when an old friend (Lyle Talbot as Raymond Fox) offers not only to pay their hotel bill but pay their train fare back to New York.

When Kay and June miss their train and have to stay an extra night, they hear on the radio the next morning that newlywed Daisy is a "girl missing". Gibson, her new husband, is offering 25000 as a reward for returning her, and Kay and June decide to stick around and solve the mystery. There is a car chase along a seacoast highway, a dead body found on a bench, and a note with a dagger through it saying "you are next".

This thing is pure rat a tat action and precode one liners , largely powered by brassy Glenda Farrell who really carries the weight of the energy of this thing. Kibbee is great in his small role as the frustrated wannabe lover. Edward Ellis is memorable as the very skeptical police inspector. Watch this one if you are in the mood for some precode goodness Warner Brothers style.

Glenda Is Fun In An Especially Good Vehicle

[Handlinghandel · 7/10 · 2 July 2003]

Glenda Farrell is a delight as Torch Blane in that series. Here we have more of a hybrid:

This starts out as a light-hearted comedy dedicated strictly to the fine art of gold-digging.

When it eases into the mystery suggested by the title, Glenda keeps pace beautifully and the movie keeps its rhythm.

A real pleasure!

fun and fast talking

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 22 August 2021]

I've become very aware of the fast talking in early films since a high school class saw a screwball comedy from the '30s and couldn't understand anything because the people were talking too fast. Wow.

Girl Missing from 1933 stars Glenda Farrell, Mary Brian, Lyle Talbot, Guy Kibbee, Ben Lyon, and Peggy Shannon.

Farrell and Brian play Kay and June, two chorus girls who have glommed onto a rich guy (KIbbee) and are leading him on, all the while living it up in Florida. He finally gets sick of June having a headache and takes off, leaving the women with a $700 hotel bill.

Fortunately, an old friend (Talbot) comes through and pays their bill. He also buys them tickets so they can go home. However, they miss the train and have to stay an extra night.

Then they find out that another golddigging chorus girl, Daisy (Peggy Shannon) newly married to a rich man, Henry Gibson (Lyon) has disappeared. Her new husband is offering a $25,000 reward for anyone who can find her. Kay decides they're staying put.

This film moves like lightning, with Glenda Farrell saying probably pages of dialogue in seconds. It seems from the story that Kay is the one trying to fix June up with a wealthy man. Farrell is only two years older and an attractive blond, so I did wonder why she wasn't looking to score herself.

Very much a Warners Brothers film, with the two women deftly solving the mystery of Daisy's disappearance and a murder besides. Always fun, always fast.

Sisterly Sleuths

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 25 June 2021]

This film revolves around two chorus girls named Kay (Glenda Farrell) and June (Mary Brian), who are always looking for their next sugar daddy. Just as their latest benefactor leaves them high and dry, they hear about a former coworker who is marrying a well-to-do young man. When they run into the fortunate social climber, she gives them the high hat.

What begins as a comedy turns into a mystery when the new bride disappears and a corpse is found at the honeymoon hotel. The police are stymied, but the girls---motivated by a sizeable reward offer---set off to investigate.

Though Ms. Farrell has the more assertive role, I found Mary Brian to be a delight. The cast in general is strong. The fast-moving story never flags. A sequel featuring the detective work of the two women (and others from the cast) might have been a winner.

A comedy of manners?

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 4 December 2017]

Although some DVD distributors obviously think otherwise, crime does necessarily induce a movie to fall into the category of film noir.

Take "Girl Missing" (1933), for example. Here we have a delightful "B" outing in which fast-talking Glenda Farrell and super-luscious Mary Brian try to penetrate the disappearing act Peggy Shannon stages on her wedding night.

All three women are most enticingly gowned by Orry-Kelly, while Arthur Todd's photography, as might be expected, tends to be appropriately light and bright.

In the main, although director Robert Florey handles the movie with speed and efficiency, he tends to concentrate more on the players (Ben Lyon, Guy Kibbee, Harold Huber, Helen Ware, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan and company) and their pungent dialogue than on either the on-screen crimes (murder and attempted murder) or the actual mystery.

So, be warned! The situations in "Girl Missing" mainly serve to provide new twists in the plot. And that plot is mainly not what most customers would expect of a mystery thriller. Admittedly, there are a few thrills, but I would describe "Girl Missing" as mainly a comedy of manners.

Gold digger crime fighters!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 June 2021]

"Girl Missing" is a neat little B-movie which goes from being a comedy to a murder mystery about midway through the picture. It begins with Kay and June (Glenda Farrell and Mary Brian) at a hotel...and June is being pursued by a dirty old man (Guy Kibbee). While Kay and June are looking for a rich husband, this guy is just a creep who won't take no for an answer. Well, when June tells him no, he abandons them...sticking them with a hotel bill.

Now you probably will assume that the rest of the film will consists of the pair hooking husbands....and you'd be wrong! Instead, it becomes a murder mystery and the police are having a hard time putting the pieces together. So, like too many 1930s films, amateurs manage to piece it all together, as Kay and June want the reward money!

Overall, this is a fun and snappy B-movie...the type Warner Brothers did so very well during this era. The acting is very good and the writing, surprisingly, is very good as well. Well worth seeing and fun.

By the way, if you do watch note the opening titles....as they are very creatively done.

Dame Detectives

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 22 August 2003]

Two gold digging chorines think they can solve the mystery of a criminal's murder and a GIRL MISSING on her wedding night.

Fast-moving & fun, this is another example of the comedy crime picture that Warner Brothers was so expert at producing. Casts & plots could be shuffled endlessly, with very predictable results. While this assembly line approach created few classics, audience enjoyment could usually be assured.

Warners' wisecracking brassy blonde, Glenda Farrell, and pretty Mary Brian play the chorus girls stranded in Florida who must crack the homicide and kidnapping case in order to earn the sizable reward. They are both excellent in their roles, with sassy Farrell especially funny slinging her one-liners.

Ben Lyon plays the newlywed husband with much unexpected trouble on his hands. Lyle Talbot appears as a successful New York gigolo gone adventuring to Miami. Little Ferdinand Gottschalk is the eccentric parent of the purloined bride and wonderful character actor Guy Kibbee enlivens his few scenes as an old lecher desperate to get his hands on Miss Brian.

Movie mavens will recognize Louise Beavers as a maid & Walter Brennan as a garage attendant, both uncredited.

Move Over Charlie Chan

[dougdoepke · 29 September 2016]

Instead of the usual two guys as sleuth and sidekick, Girl Missing features two gals, blonde Kay (Farrell) and brunette June (Brian). I guess shaking a leg in a chorus line sharpened their Sherlock skills. Add mystery girl, Daisy (Shannon) and you've got lots of 1930's eye-candy along with the styles and fashions. Seems Daisy mysteriously disappears on her wedding night to a wealthy man, Gibson (Lyon). Her secret is she's a gold digger, but what good will disappearing do since how then can she collect. Thus the mystery begins.

This is pre-Code Warner Bros., so how can you lose. Even programmers like this 69-minutes are full of snap and sass. As a brassy dame Farrell belongs up there with Blondell and Rogers. Here she's full of ideas and push, but cutie Brian gets the guys. Together there're a good team, causing me to wonder if WB had series in mind. There's also an unusual wind-up since there're two plausible solutions to the mystery, one implicating apparently nice guy and male lead, Gibson. And catch those rickety old flivvers rolling down the road. I'm surprised they ever held together. Also in passing, check out actress Shannon's bio in IMDb—it's on the tragic side, especially since she had the screen talent.

Anyway, the movie's an entertaining way to pass on hour, without being anything special.

Kidnapped

[boblipton · 6/10 · 25 June 2021]

When Ben Lyon's bride is kidnapped from their Palm Beach hotel, stranded chorines Glenda Farrell and Mary Bryan find themselves mixed up as witnesses, suspects, and crime-crackers.

For a Warner Brothers quickie that clocks in at 69 minutes, this one has a surprisingly leisurely set-up, taking the first 25 minutes to paint the resort as populated by gold diggers, operators and rich marks. This is made possible by casting Miss Farrell, who could recite all of Hamlet in 27 minutes, but also the efficient story-telling at Warners in this period. It's not a topnotch script, but director Robert Florey keeps things humming along, with a few dutch angles and cheesecake shots to keep the intellectuals and lechers happy.

Girl missing along with director and screenwriter

[1930s_Time_Machine · 4/10 · 8 December 2023]

Oh dear, this is disappointing. Glenda Farrell's boundless energy and enthusiasm is just about enough to make this unrealistic drivel watchable but you'll wonder why you bothered.

What's missing besides the girl is a plot that makes at least some sense. The writers' room must have been supplied with some pretty nasty bathtub gin for them to come up with this disjointed uneven nonsense. In theory a story like this should be fun and exciting but its direction is lacklustre and besides Glenda Farrell, the actors look like they'd rather be somewhere else.

Where's Joan Blondell? You might ask. She'd have livened this up and with an awake director it could have been a great film but we're stuck with silent film actress Mary Brian. She just isn't credible as a gold digger. Bland, humourless and dull yes - leading lady material, no.

That usually sweet and cuddly old Guy Kibbee is surprisingly pretty unpleasant in this. He's the sugar daddy looking after and forcing himself on the girls. "I want more than kisses." he tells Mary Brian. "Be in my bedroom in one hour or less" he instructs her. Viewed with 21st century eyes this seems disgraceful behaviour and it makes no sense that a couple of sassy streetwise girls would allow themselves to be treated like this. It is however 1933 - options for women were more than limited. Women were not independent - there were hardly any jobs for women back then - being single was not choice. As the song goes: every woman needs a man. Not only was this different times but it was at the height of the American Depression so those limited opportunities were virtually non existent. The Guy Kibbee character might have made their lives miserable but it was preferable to starving. Stupid stories like this probably didn't seem so stupid back then.

But despite being made when it was, despite it being made by 'the working man's studio' Warner Brothers, none of that context is really explored. Watching this will not enrich your life.

Crime Solving Chorus Cuties!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 11 May 2010]

"For the G.D. Sisters - I don't know whether he means Gold Digger or that other well known word"!!!

Directed by the very under rated Robert Florey using some quite unusual camera angles (overhead shot of gambling tables, camera shots from the floor ala "Citizen Kane"). Delectable Peggy Shannon may have been the "Girl Missing" and pretty Mary Brian may have been the chorus girl used as "beauty bait" but sizzling Glenda Farrell was sensational and just the whole show. Her rapid fire delivery of lines would have left James Cagney standing and proved she could have run the New York Police Department with one hand tied behind her back. "Listen you dumbbells - I'm running the show now"!!! Unfortunately the ending had simpering Mary Brian bagging the handsome millionaire while Glenda had to be content trading wisecracks with the Chief of Police - "Now Kay, don't get tough - I don't get tough, I am tough"!!! In one of her few starring roles and she still doesn't get her man!! "Snake-eyes!! Wouldn't that frost your grandmother's cake!!!"

"Working for a living's old fashioned"!! Kay Curtis (Glenda Farrell) and June Dale (Mary Brian) are two chorus girls left with an unpaid hotel bill of $700, thanks to June's irate "sugar daddy" who has left them high and dry. They run into a fellow chorine, "Dumb" Daisy (Peggy Shannon) who is looking distinctly up market, with her millionaire fiancée, Henry Gibson (Ben Lyon) and her "society parents" -"Daisy's folks - she can have them and they can have her"!!. Needless to say, she gives our gals the air - "He thinks she's first rate society instead of second row chorus"!!

On her wedding night she goes "missing" and the hapless groom offers a reward of $25,000 to whoever can help solve the mystery. Kay, who thinks she can and wants the reward, rushes to Henry's hotel. He has already met June in the lift and you suddenly know who is going to end up with who!! - "He likes you, I'm only the stepchild - everything I do is wrong"!! Kay and June think they know who is behind the disappearance - Raymond Fox (Lyle Talbot) met them in the bar and seemed awful eager to have them leave town - even paying their hotel bill. He had once been close to Daisy and wants them to let her have a break (by marrying millionaire Henry). Kay knows the real Daisy and after saving Henry's life - his car wheel has been tampered with by Raymond's driver - convinces him to fake his death to the papers - "that'll bring Daisy back in the picture" - and it does!! It also exposes her "parents" as a couple of ham actors, hired along with Daisy to hook millionaire Henry (a plot device used the same year in Jean Harlow's "Bombshell"). It all finished, with plenty of pre-code humour and wisecracks, as Kay pulls a gun and gets confessions from the right people - much to the admiration of the Chief of Police. "Yeah and what did I get - Don't worry you've still got it coming"!!

Peggy Shannon, after such a promising start in films ("The Secret Call") was now, due to temperament and alcohol, way down in the cast list, usually playing hard boiled chorus girls ("Girl - Missing" and "The Case of the Lucky Legs"(1935)). It was a sad end, eventually, to such a promising career.

Highly Recommended.

Pleasant programmer

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 21 January 2012]

For a 1933 movie, "Girl Missing" has surprisingly advanced camera work, and for a 68-minute movie, it has a surprisingly intricate plot. Glenda Farrell and Mary Brian make a good team of amateur sleuths, their somewhat contrasting styles working to their advantage; Brian is softer, sweeter, more romantic, Farrell is tougher, faster, more aggressive. Brian's smile should be enough to brighten even the gloomiest day, and Farrell's rapid-fire line delivery here probably contributed to her getting the "Torchy Blane" role a few years later - another amateur sleuth with a great crime-solving instinct. "Girl Missing" is no great shakes, but it passes the time pleasantly enough. **1/2 out of 4.

"Too Bad You're a Woman, You'd Been a Good Copper!"

[HarlowMGM · 5/10 · 5 April 2011]

GIRL MISSING is a typical Warner Bros. programmer from the early thirties, a passable comedy murder mystery elevated to being fairly entertaining almost entirely due to the ever sensational Glenda Farrell in the starring role. Farrell and Mary Brian play Broadway chorines on the prowl in Florida; Brian has hooked lecherous old Guy Kibbee but she has yet to come across much to the old lech's disgruntlement, having set both (!!) girls up in a swanky hotel. Finally having enough of nothing, Kibbee skips town leaving them with a $700 hotel bill. To add injury to insult, the girls read in the paper a dreaded old chorus girl rival of theirs, Peggy Shannon, has hooked the rich young millionaire Ben Lyon.

Broke and broken, the girls run into Shannon who haughtily denies knowing them. Fuming ever more, they sulk at the bar when who should they run into buy another old Broadway acquaintance, gigolo-conman Lyle Talbot, an old flame of Shannon's. Talbot sympathetically offers to pay the girls hotel bill and their fares back to New York and they take him up on his offer, but the next day Brian runs into the groom-to-be Lyon and develops a crush, which causes the girls to miss their train and have to stay over another few days.

Lyon and Shannon elope and return to their hotel for the honeymoon, only to have Shannon mysteriously disappear that night. Lyon's announced reward of $25,000 for the location of his wife keeps the girls in town and Farrell in particular thinks Shannon and Talbot have cooked up a scheme together and is out to prove it.

This movie only runs 69 minutes but it seems a little longer given we've seen all this before; of the cast only Glenda Farrell really gives it her all. Farrell dives into this little mystery like it's THE MALTESE FALCON and makes the film seem much better than it actually is. She alas receives very little help from Mary Brian, whose performance is astonishingly awkward considering how long she had been acting in films at this point, or even the usually reliable Ben Lyon, here in a rather milquetoast role to which he adds nothing. Lyle Talbot and Guy Kibbee have rather small parts despite their importance to the storyline; Peggy Shannon is not bad as the two-faced bride while Helen Ware and Ferdinand Gottshalk are very good as her bogus parents.

This final paragraph is a spoiler that reveals the screenwriter is the one actually spoils the film. We know of course given how these stories go that (A) Shannon and Talbot are behind her "disappearance" and (B) "leads" Lyon and Brian will fall in love and live happily ever after. At the conclusion though when Shannon is at the police station and cornered, she comes up with a sensational story that her husband was behind her disappearance, that he could only get his inheritance by being married and then he drugged her and had her kidnapped. The film-goer has witnessed both Lyon's confession about the inheritance status and him giving her a presumed aspirin for a headache yet dismissed this, believing him the victim of the film and because of how this type of story always plays out in 1930's programmers one knows Shannon and Talbot are the bad guys and Lyon is the good guy by their screen personas. The screenwriter completely blew a chance to make a cutting edge mystery for the era by not making Shannon's tale in fact true - a supposedly "victim" double crossing the con artists who are out to trap him - instead the author passes it over for the conventional sappy wrap-up of the "good" couple walking off into the sunset together even if she is another golddigger herself and he, so supposedly worried about his missing bride yet still makes a breakfast date with Brian! 1930's audiences might have been pleased with this conventional ending but a true surprise ending with not only the Shannon/Talbot gang locked up but a devious heir Lyon as well and the jaded chorines Farrell and Brian off on the train to their next adventure would have packed a stronger punch and made this a vastly better film.

Fun "B" Mystery

[Michael_Elliott · 21 March 2012]

Girl Missing (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert Florey directed this fast-paced Warner mystery about a couple chorus girls (Glenda Farrell, Mary Brian) who are ditched in Palm Springs after their sugar daddy (Guy Kibbee) leaves them there. They hear about a former friend who has snagged a millionaire (Ben Lyon) but after she goes missing on her honeymoon the girls decide to do their own investigating. GIRL MISSING certainly isn't going to be mistaken for a classic but there's no doubt that the cast is attractive and it all leads up to a pretty good ending. I think the best thing the film has going for it is the cast all of whom fit their roles quite nicely. Farrell and Brian are certainly the strong points as the two work perfectly well together and they know had to throw things back and forth and they really help keep the film moving. The two of them have some nice comic timing and there's no question that they take their parts and rise them a few notches. Lyon is also good in his role as the husband who might have something to hide and we also have Lyle Talbot playing a man who helps the girls out. Kibbee appears at the very start of the film in just a five-minute sequence but he's certainly memorable in the funny bit of a man who wants to "make love" for spending money on the ladies. The opening few scenes contain quite a bit of pre-code comedy aimed at money for sex, which is certainly fun when viewed today. The film has quite a few small issues including the fact that the comedy usually doesn't work. There are some supporting characters who are constantly arguing and this here never gets the laughs. There are also some minor bits with a dimwitted detective that really doesn't work either. With that said, fans of "B" mysteries should enjoy this one as it goes by at a quick pace and there's no doubt that the cast is attractive.

The gold diggers become murder solvers!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 19 September 2014]

After sugar daddy Guy Kibbee gets fed up with the two chorus girls (Glenda Farrell and Mary Brian) not "putting out" after bringing them to Palm Beach, he leaves them a "Dear Jane" letter, informing them that he's checked out and NOT paid their hotel bill. This leaves the girls broke and stranded and they take up the offer of an old pal from New York to pay their bill as well as their train back to New York. But circumstances beyond their control keep them there, and they get involved in the disappearance of old chorus girl rival (Peggy Shannon) who has married a wealthy young man (Ben Lyon) and is obviously involved in some sort of scam. It is up to Farrell and Brian (mostly out of smug revenge) to expose Shannon for who she really is, and expose the killer of one of the people involved in the scam.

This is pre-code society comedy at its seediest, obvious from the start with Guy Kibbee's brief appearance as the lecherous old coot who insists on making love to Brian simply because of his generosity. As icky as that sounds, it is presented with humor, and Kibbee's revenge on the two girls is hysterically funny. These Warner Brothers pre-code comedies are mostly enjoyable because of the wise-cracking dialog, and Farrell gets a dime a dozen. Obviously, Mary Brian was cast in the absence of Farrell's often co-star Joan Blondell, and she lacks the chemistry that Farrell and Blondell shared, coming off rather ordinary. Of course, Farrell and Blondell snapped, crackled and popped whether they were co-horts in some scam or rivals over some man.

Ferdinand Gottschalk and Helen Ware are very funny as Shannon's obviously phony society parents, ham actors who obviously can't stand each other and who obviously hate pretending to be husband and wife. A ton of character favorites appear in unbilled minor roles, but are instantly recognizable, including Louise Beavers as Shannon's maid and Walter Brennan as a gas station attendant. You can't find fault in these depression era, pre-code programmers, although some are much better than others. This ranks in the middle, which considering the number of films made each year during this time isn't a bad place to be.

gold-digging Nancy Drews

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 24 June 2021]

Kay Curtis (Glenda Farrell) and June Dale (Mary Brian) are showgirls living off a sugar daddy. June turns down his sexual advances and he abandons them. They have to pay for their $700 hotel bill and start fishing for their next mark. Former colleague Daisy Bradford, who is set to marry wealthy Henry Gibson, ignores them. He takes her to elope and reveals that he comes into his family fortune after their marriage. His new wife goes missing and the police finds a dead man. The gold-digging duo starts digging into the case.

As a comedy, I don't find this funny. I don't find the leads appealing and their antics are not actually funny. Maybe they could be funnier if they play dumb. They could be a funny pre-valley-girl duo. The movie takes a turn when it starts following Daisy's story. Any comedy is gone and it becomes a murder mystery. The girls become fast-talking Nancy Drews. Maybe if they start without the unappealing gold-digging, they would have more rooting interest.