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.

Monday, April 10, 2023

KANSAS CITY PRINCESS (1934)

Over five films (‘33 to ‘35), Warner Brothers tried to make a comedy team out of fondly remembered Joan Blondell and barely remembered Glenda Farrell.  It didn’t take, but at least this little programmer doesn’t push as hard as Warners was wont to.  Then again, not really much to push in this story of gold-digging Kansas City manicurists, trimming cuticles and mugs before they scadadle out of town, training to NYC before they’re whisked off to Paris along with a boatload of millionaire possibilities.  Viva la France!  Robert Armstrong’s the besotted/mob-connected operator wooing Blondell with a diamond engagement ring (swiped by his own BFF); Hugh Herbert a money-bags at sea for Farrell to make waves at.  The film briefly threatens to come alive when the gals hide in plain sight with a large group under stolen scout uniforms and run away from jobs, cops and butter-and-egg men.  A gender swapped SOME LIKE IT HOT?*  Don’t get your hopes up.  The idea dropped before we even hit the gangplank.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Also echoes of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES in the NYC-to-Paris fortune hunt.  Filmed as a silent in 1928 with a pair of blondes (Alice White; Ruth Taylor) twenty-five years before blonde Marilyn Monroe and brunette Jane Russell made the musical.

No comments: