Joyce Compton News & Notes

In the same year that Joyce Compton made a splash supporting Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth , she marked time in the shoestring-budgeted Small Town Boy . Here Joyce plays a girl named Molly Summers, sweetie-pie girlfriend of Stuart Erwin's title character. Erwin's Henry Armstrong is a bumbling sap who works in an insurance office run by Joyce's domineering uncle (Clarence Wilson). He's also suffering through a turbulent home life with a nagging mother (Clara Blandick), indifferent dad (Jed Prouty) and ne'er-do-well brother (James Blakeley) - so it comes as a pleasant surprise when he finds a crisp thousand dollar bill under a stubborn horse's hoof. Erwin does the honest thing by advertising his find in the local paper, offering the bill to anyone who can supply the serial number. This causes even more trouble in the Erwin household, and when the bill is misplaced it leads to a comic chase all across town. Scripted and directed by Glenn Tryon (fath...

Under 18 is a great, lesser-known example of the prototypical Warner Bros. Pre-Code drama. In the film, pretty Marian Marsh stars as a young woman from the slums of New York trying to make ends meet with her recently widowed mother (Emma Dunn). Although she is dating a sweet delivery truck driver (Regis Toomey), witnessing the stormy relationship of her sister (Anita Page) and her lazy gambler of a husband (Norman Foster) has made her cynical about love and marriage. Working as a seamstress at a local fashion house, Marsh is drafted into a modeling job and meets a slimy millionaire (Warren William in the first of many "heel" roles) who invites the comely girl up to his penthouse. Although she is turned off by the way the models in her workplace have become rich mens' mistresses, a desperate turn for her sister prompts Marsh to re-think the man's offer. Despite the film's salacious title, Under 18 is actually quite a gritty and compelling drama which is given spi...