The Footloose Heiress (1937) User Reviews

A lot better than I expected

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 February 2007]

This is one of those films that somehow missed being placed in the Leonard Maltin guide--probably because many "small" films from the 30s and 40s have been omitted (mostly "B" films). And, while the only famous person in the film is Ann Sheridan, I was surprised that this little film STILL packed a lot of fun into it.

Sheridan plays a very spoiled rich young lady who constantly does things just to try to upset her father! Again and again, she's tried to elope but the father always seems to find out and put a stop to it. On the last occasion, the dad almost gets run over by a train but is rescued by a hobo who is "riding the rails". This hobo, it turns out, is a very helpful fella and inexplicably leaves the train to move in with the family to help set things straight--much like what occurred when William Powell followed Carole Lombard home in MY MAN GODFREY. Some of what follows is pretty easy to guess, but the way it goes about doing it is so unusual and the acting and characters so good that it is well worth seeing. It's a dandy little romantic-comedy that is surprisingly sweet and funny.

A couple of free spirits

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 3 June 2020]

Ann Sheridan and Craig Reynolds star in The Footloose Heiress and truth be told both are ind of footloose. She;s an heiress who's a bit of a wildchild and he's the son of an advertising executive living the life of a hobo after a fig with dear old dad.

Turns out Ann's dad Hugh O'Connell is in need of some advertising talents. So through a combination of fate and machinations Ann and Craig are fated to be mated.

Amusing screwball comedy so typical of the 30s. Funniest in the supporting cast I would have to single out Frank Orth as a frustrated small town judge.

The Footloose Heiress holds up well after 80+ years.

Not Again!

[boblipton · 5/10 · 24 July 2023]

Ann Sheridan is making her fifth attempt at getting married. This time her father, Hugh O'Connell, stops her with the unexpected help of quickwitted drifter Craig Reynolds, who claims to be her husband. One thing follows another and soon Reynolds is helping O'Connell with his advertising firm.

This poor man's MY MAN GODFREY isn't terribly interesting. Miss Sheridan is a fine actress, but she has an air of practicality about her that does not suit the comedy, and the lines are not particularly funny. As he so often did, director William Clemens seems more intent on getting through the shoot quickly than in getting laughs. Not that there are many to get; RKO mined the madcap heiress theme thoroughly in the 1930s, usually with Ann Southern and Gene Raymond in some mediocre programmer, that it took something more to make it worthwhile than this one has.

very charming leading man

[skiddoo · 26 October 2011]

He's the kind of figure that Indy Jones might have modeled his clothing and attitude on. This Depression era movie includes all the usuals--the educated hobos who find freedom on the road, the silly cops, the spoiled upper class, the heiress who needs to be taught a lesson, the hapless wealthy father worried about financial affairs while nobody else seems to have the slightest concern, the casual approach to marriage among the elite, the wonderful clothes and cars and homes, the use and abuse of publicity, the glib conversation, the hectic pace, ...so one might expect it to be the same old same old. But it held my interest, largely because of the hero whose smile lit up the screen and the unusual aspect of creating radio playlets that featured carbon. I wanted to see how it came out.

It also shows that the word capiche was used in the 30s and came into common parlance from comic books.

The Taming of the Heiress

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 22 July 2023]

Spoiled hard-partying socialite Kay Allyn (Ann Sheridan) is 18 and determined to elope with Jack Pierson (William Hopper) for a silly bet. Her rich advertising tycoon father John C. Allyn (Hugh O'Connell) is offering a reward to stop her. Bruce 'Butch' Baeder (Craig Reynolds) is a hobo who intends to tame her.

This is a silly screwball comedy. Butch is not considered funny for today's world. He's playing the cad, but it wouldn't fly now. This is like The Taming of the Shrew and that play has become more and more dated over the years. To be fair, this premise still worked during its time. I would still tone down Butch. It works better for the comedy.

Moviegoers can feel fortunate that Ann Sheridan graduated from B movies

[jacobs-greenwood · 4/10 · 19 December 2016]

This below average B movie romance comedy was directed by William Clemens, produced by Brian Foy, and written by Robertson White. While most will recognize Ann Sheridan (who thankfully found her way out of such B programmers) in the title role, the rest of the cast is largely unknown (certainly to today's audiences).

It's a fairly wacky story about the spoiled daughter (Sheridan) of an advertising executive (Hugh O'Connell) who gets some much needed help in his personal and professional life from a 'forgotten man' hobo (Craig Reynolds), who turns out to actually be the son of a famous Boston advertising agency owner (Wedgwood Nowell, uncredited) himself. The best thing about this picture is the fact that it runs less than an hour.

Kay Allyn (Sheridan) has her father John C. or J.C. Allyn (O'Connell) wrapped around her finger; no mother character is ever introduced or mentioned, so Allyn is a widower or divorced. Kay has threatened to marry a society boy with no means of supporting himself, Jack Pierson (William Hopper), on a bet with another friend, Wilbur (William Eberhardt). She's just turned eighteen and, though this 'stunt' is apparently one of several previously unsuccessful elopements, she's now old enough to do so without her father's permission. But that doesn't keep him from trying.

When Kay's frantic high speed chase to be married before midnight, in order to win the bet, is delayed by a train, a hobo witnesses the episode and ends up saving her father's life and, upon learning the story, stopping the wedding before Justice Abner Cuttler (Frank Orth). This endears the hobo, named Bruce 'Butch' Baeder (Reynolds) to J.C., but naturally infuriates his daughter Kay, and Jack (whose sister Linda is played by Anne Nagel).

Butch precedes in helping J.C. thwart any of Kay's future plans to wed Jack (by sabotaging her car), but of course Jack and Kay will eventually be attracted to one another. Teddy Hart plays the Allyn's chauffeur Charlie. J.C. also has a deadline to come up with some new material for his top client (Edwin Stanley, uncredited), an automobile oil executive who wants to try radio advertisements, so Butch helps him with that as well when his true identity is revealed. Apparently, Butch had a falling out with his father in Boston, had called him an old fogey, so he'd decided to see the country by rail.

There are more hijinks at the country club, where Jack and Kay were to be engaged before all their friends but Butch attends ostensibly with Linda on his arm (but this is a contrived event to begin the eventual two's relationship). Out of spite, Kay tells her father that Butch's advertising copy is awful, and Butch's own father (per the falling out) denies he even has a son by phone. So Butch heads to Boston, as a hobo by train again, but by now J.C. has learned that his client loves the "Dirty Dan & Ping Ping" routine and Kay's decided she loves the 'bum'. There's another run in with Justice Cuttler before an unexplainable escape and the predictable ending hookup between the two lead characters.

Can a footloose heiress really be tamed?

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 2 May 2019]

This is an enjoyable but flat screwball comedy that unfortunately doesn't resolve certain plot elements in it's our long-running time. Wealthy Hugh O'Connell is trying to keep his footloose heiress daughter Ann Sheridan from running off and eloping with her latest loser conquest and sicks alleged handsome hobo Craig Stevens on her to stop that from happening. Sheridan is another variation of Kate from "Taming of the Shrew", certainly not a man hater, but filled with a fiery temper that gets more furious when she cannot get her way. Sheridan goes along with her father's scheme just to teach him a lesson, inviting Stevens up to her room, but after an argument, she's throwing pretty much everything on her vanity at him in a rage. How does Stevens react to this? He simply picks her up and drops her violently onto her daybed, and she's so incensed by his not falling under her spell that she breaks out into a crying fit that she has never done in her entire life.

Papa O'Connell is impressed by Stephens and hires him to write advertising copy which Sheridan dismisses as horrible. His claim that he's actually the son of a Boston millionaire is falsely disproved when Sheridan makes a call, and this leads him to be fired. But Sheridan, quickly realizing her mistake, gets O'Connell to go on a chase to bring him back and pretty much leads them both into more comic mayhem that may just indeed tame her. we get to see what life for a well-dressed, handsome hobo is like, as he rides literally on the wheels of a train while O'Connell and Sheridan try to get him to meet them at the next station.

Of course, this is inconsequential and frivolous, but there are certainly many moments where you will be laughing at everything going on. Stevens and Sheridan are young, attractive and filled with personality (although Sheridan does manage to make her spoiled heiress reined in when she begins to get out of control), but for some reason I could not buy Hugh O'Connell as a wealthy entrepreneur. He seems like he would be more a bank clerk than the head of a big corporation. It is obvious that this film was rushed out on one of the Warner Brothers big mansion sets, probably taking a week or two to film then edit and get a quick release rather than the months of their big budget films. I can't praise it, but I can't condemn it either.

quick little caper from warner

[ksf-2 · 8/10 · 7 June 2020]

Footloose heiress -- When silly girl Kay Allyn (Sheridan) bets her friend that she can marry Jack Pierson before midnight, Dad hires a tramp (Craig Reynolds) to help stop the wedding. and Kay spends the rest of the film falling in and out of love with the tramp. some humor along the way, as the tramp loses his jacket in a crap game. and that jacket is more valuable than he knows! and some small town shenanigans when the justice of the peace goes fishin! fun shortie from Warner... just 59 minutes. Sheridan, Reynolds, and Hopper would all die young, of various causes. Directed by Bill Clemens, probably best known for making Nancy Drew films and the "Falcon" films. HE lived to a ripe old age of 74. this one is short but fun.

Entertaining, Fun, Worth the Watch

[tr-83495 · 10/10 · 28 March 2019]

Craig Reynolds leads this superb cast in an entertaining romp through America circa 1937. The film holds your interest throughout and hearkens back to the days when seeing hobos catching trains was a common, everyday occurrence. Parents threatened their children that if they didn't behave they would become bums and hobos.

The hobo in this story is the hero and he is quite dashing. Naturally, this particular hobo must turn out to be a prince -- because we are watching a fairy tale, but we do meet several other lower class characters who are of superior intellect and provide additional amusement to an already amusing script.

Where are entertaining films like this today? We can only hope TCM keeps unearthing the several thousand other films they have never shown from Hollywood's Golden Age.

Brat Taming

[ccarrolladams · 26 October 2011]

Not all that long before William Clemens started directing the Nancy Drew films, he made a fun movie staring a personable second-string leading man (Craig Reynolds) and an ever-enticing leading lady (Ann Sheridan).

The Footloose Heiress has some elements of screwball. At the start of the film, to spite her wealthy ad-man father "John C Allyn (Hugh O'Connell) "Kay Allyn" elopes with "Jack Pierson" (William Hopper) the night she turned 18. The elopement car gets delayed by a freight train, where Kay sees "Butch" (Craig Reynolds) riding the rails.

On the other side of the train tracks and delayed by the same train is John Allyn. He tries to cross the tracks as the train starts to move again, falling under the wheels. In the nick of time Butch saves John. After John explains that Kay has tried to elope 4 previous times, Butch drives John in pursuit. Seconds before the I-Do's Butch stops the marriage.

Back at the Allyn home John invites hobo Butch to stay, since he has already begun taming the footloose Kay. To continue the taming, Butch takes Kay to a country club dance. There she intends to embarrass Butch. He anticipate such a move and in typical 1937 movie style handles the situation by spanking Kay with her snooty friends all watching and delighted.

While an adult man spanking an adult woman for romantic comedy was often shown in those pre PC days, this is an almost realistic spanking. She is put across his lap with her head to his left, so his right palm has a clear shot. Butch appears to land several hard smacks, causing Kay to react. Clearly she is intrigued and enthralled.

Although John Allyn is wealthy, clearly his ad agency had no experience with radio. John's major client wants a radio show. By good luck "Hobo Butch" is actually Bruce Baeder, the son of the leading Boston ad man. Bruce is estranged from his father and decided to see the USA from the rails instead of writing ad copy for his dad's agency. To save John, Bruce does write excellent radio scripts.

There are many screwball-like gag sequences.

For example, the morning after Kay gets spanked, the Allyn family butler puts a fluffy cushion on her chair at the breakfast table.

By the final fade-out Kay and Bruce are happily together.

Although I consider myself a fan and collector of 1930s movies, before seeing The Footloose Heiress on TCM on 26 October 2011, I was only familiar with Ann Sheridan and William Hopper. I have long adored Sheridan as "Blossom Girl" in The Man Who Came To Dinner. Before Hopper played "Paul Drake" on the Perry Mason TV series, he was the father of The Bad Seed. Subsequent research shows that Craig Reynolds never really became a star before WWII. He was wounded during his service, but after his medical discharge in 1944 never got important roles. He died young in a motorcycle accident.

By sad coincidence a stunt woman was killed making this film when a car over turned on location in Pasadena.

I must say I enjoyed The Footloose Heiress so much I look forward to seeing it again many times.