| Blessed Event | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Roy Del Ruth |
| Written by | Howard J. Green |
| Based on | Blessed Event 1932 play by Manuel Seff and Forrest Wilson |
| Starring |
Lee Tracy Mary Brian |
| Cinematography | Sol Polito |
| Edited by | James Gibbon |
| Music by | Frank Marsales |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Blessed Event is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Lee Tracy as a newspaper gossip columnist who becomes entangled with a gangster. The Tracy character (Alvin Roberts) was reportedly patterned after Walter Winchell, famous gossip columnist of the era. The film was Dick Powell's film debut. [1]
Plot
Alvin Roberts feuds with singer Bunny Harmon. Roberts reports on society people who are expecting a "blessed event", i.e. going to have a child. One such report antagonizes a gangster in a delicate situation, who sends over a henchman to threaten him. Roberts manages to turn the tables on the gangster.
The character of Bunny Harmon is a parody of Rudy Vallee,[ citation needed] as both of them sing and play saxophone, and Vallee's band was called the Connecticut Yankees, while Harmon's is the Green Mountain Boys, a reference to another New England state, Vermont. The feud between Roberts and Harmon is a parody of the real-life (contrived) feud between Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie.
Cast
- Lee Tracy as Alvin Roberts
- Mary Brian as Gladys Price
- Dick Powell as Bunny Harmon
- Allen Jenkins as Frankie Wells
- Ruth Donnelly as Miss Stevens
- Emma Dunn as Mrs. Roberts
- Edwin Maxwell as Sam Goebel
- Ned Sparks as George Moxley
- Walter Walker as Mr. Miller
- Frank McHugh as Reilly
- Herman Bing as Emil
- George Chandler as Hanson (uncredited)
- Isabel Jewell as Dorothy Lane (uncredited)
References
External links
- Blessed Event at the TCM Movie Database
- Blessed Event at IMDb
- Blessed Event at AllMovie
- Blessed Event at the American Film Institute Catalog
 | This article about a 1930s comedy-drama film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- 1932 films
- 1932 comedy-drama films
- American comedy-drama films
- American black-and-white films
- 1930s English-language films
- Films about journalists
- Films directed by Roy Del Ruth
- American gangster films
- Warner Bros. films
- 1930s American films
- English-language comedy-drama films
- 1930s comedy-drama film stubs