Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, December 21, 2018

WINE, WOMEN AND HORSES (1937)

Burly supporting player Barton MacLane gets a rare lead (a romantic lead yet!) in this low-rent rethink of DARK HAZARD/’34, an offbeat Edward G. Robinson gambling pic centered on dog racing. With MacLane, Ann Sheridan & Peggy Bates in for Eddie G., Glenda Farrell & Genevieve Tobin, this little programmer loses a lot of interest swapping out greyhounds for thoroughbred horses. It also misses the Pre-Code naughtiness of the earlier film. The basic idea is the same: MacLane, whose fortunes are always going up and down at the track, at gambling tables, even pitching horseshoes, tries going straight with a regular job when he falls for disapproving small town gal Bates, but keeps falling into bad old habits, egged on by Sheridan’s lowdown racetrack broad. Not a lot of chemistry going on here, Sheridan in the midst of a star-building work-up (seven pics in ‘37) far too fresh for the part (or MacLane) while Bates is a complete non-starter. But it did give uncredited producer Bryan Foy, Warners’ King of the ‘Bs’, a chance to hire kid brother Charley Foy (two of vaudeville’s 'Seven Little Foys') as a bargain basement horse owner.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In spite of that irresistible title, not a drop of wine in the pic.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with DARK HAZARD. (see below)

No comments: