Joyce Compton News & Notes

Here's how I described Ellis Island at my weblog, Scrubbles.net : Another cruddy 1930s b-movie which would have otherwise gone past my radar, had Joyce Compton not co-starred. This had something to do with gangsters and a dopey pair of Ellis Island employees who uncover their dirty deeds, but it didn’t hold my interest whenever Joyce (tiny role as the nurse girlfriend of one of the dopes) wasn’t on screen – which wasn’t too often! The dull, often incomprehensible Ellis Island found Joyce working at yet another poverty row studio (Invincible Pictures), playing yet another thankless part as the goofy sidekick's girlfriend. She doesn't appear in too many scenes (and looks rather distracted when she does). Probably the best thing about this incompetently made trifle is that it's very short - 67 minutes. Even at that brief length, this plodding flick still seems like it's about an hour too long! Like many of Joyce's other films, Ellis Island has slipped into ...

Joyce Compton's career in the mid- to late-1930s seemed to alternate between leads in poverty row productions and supporting parts in b-movies from the big studios (With a few bit parts thrown in. Why? Only Joyce herself could tell you.) Among the big studio efforts she appeared in was 1936's Murder with Pictures , a cliché-ridden comedy/mystery from Paramount starring a too-smirky Lew Ayres (above left) as a newspaper photographer who enjoys outpacing the police on various hot cases. He winds up becoming part of the story he’s covering when an alluring mystery lady (Gail Patrick, below left) enters his apartment seeking shelter from the pursuing authorities. The woman is a murder suspect, wrongly accused and desperate to clear her name. Ayres winds up helping her AND coming up with the incriminating photograph that proves who the real killer is. A rather silly, slight film that (at the very least) moves along at a brisk pace and has a glossy production unusual for a b-pictur...

Let 'Em Have It is a gritty little gangster pic made as the film industry was pressured to glorify the good, hard-working long arm of the law over the bad guys. The film follows three young FBI recruits, played by Richard Arlen, Henry Stephens and Gordon Jones, as they pursue an attempted extortion/kidnapping case involving the family of socialite Virginia Bruce. Produced by indie Edward Small Productions, this was a decent, faced-paced flick with more action and violence that what you’d normally expect from a ’30s-era picture. The story is very similar to the James Cagney vehicle G-Men , with all its straightforward and often unintentionally funny procedural scenes. Although it lacks the nuance of that film, it's a moderately interesting actioner. Joyce's appearance in Let 'Em Have It is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it turn the pretty girlfriend of an eager-beaver young agent played by actor Eric Linden (seen below in a publicity still with Joyce). Her inconsequen...

Here's a screen shot of Edward Everett Horton and Paul Kelly flanking a surprised-looking Joyce in 1941's Ziegfeld Girl . This luxe MGM musical stars Judy Garland, Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr as a trio of 1920s lovelies who meet different fates on their way down the Giant Staircase of Fame, when they become the lucky few hired as chorus girls in Flo Ziegfeld's famous Follies. It's quite a fun movie, albeit overlong and campy at times (especially the scenes with a too-young Turner as the responsibility-chucking, alcoholic Ziegfeld Girl). Garland fares the best as the perky, ambitious one whose well-intentioned yet clueless vaudeville hoofer dad (Charles Winninger) is holding her back. She also gets a good ballad to sing in "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." Stone-faced Lamarr is mesmerizing, but lacks a good storyline. First-billed Jimmy Stewart also appears as Turner's sensible trucker boyfriend, but he seems distracted - perhaps by Turner's embarras...