Joyce Compton News & Notes

Blues in the Night ranks as one of the more enjoyable Warner Brothers melodramas of the 1940s. Silly and overblown at times, but engrossing nonetheless. Richard Whorf (above, left) heads a mid-level cast as jazz pianist Jigger Pine, a regular guy with a quartet that includes wormlike Elia Kazan, hulking Peter Whitney and young pup Billy Halop. The trio are at a crossroads. A scuffle with a belligerent customer at the dive where they’re playing lands them in jail, prompting them to stick with the noncommercial blues-influenced style they love. They travel to New Orleans to meet with trumpeter Jack Carson, who is married to lovely singer Priscilla Lane. The group form a swell combo, riding the rails and playing wherever they can to get a decent meal. Eventually they befriend gangster Lloyd Nolan, who leads them to a New Jersey dive where sad sack Wallace Ford and hard-bitten singer Betty Field (who is amazing in this) work. The story gets very complex from there, helped along by some ...

“Pre Code Shirley Tempe” might be the best description for the heated Southern drama Lena Rivers , which recently came out on DVD under its reissue title The Sin of Lena Rivers . The film focuses on elfin actress Charlotte Henry playing a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who bears the stigma of illegitimate parentage. Henry’s Lena Rivers is raised by her grandmother (Beryl Mercer doing her usual kindhearted mama thing) after he mother dies in childbirth. After the grandfather dies in a boating accident, the duo are invited to live with a rich uncle in their relatives’ plush Kentucky mansion. The girl doesn’t fit in with the hoi polloi, preferring the company of the servants, but one neighbor (James Kirkwood) has a strange bond with the girl — even gifting her with a wild horse that only she can tame. As it turns out, the neighbor is the girl’s father and her ability to turn the horse into a racing champion is what will endear her to the others. A rather sweet film that is marre...

Was it the blonde hair? Joyce got another chance to play a temptress in Sing, Sinner, Sing , a 1933 production from the budget-level studio Majestic. Sing, Sinner, Sing is a rather ordinary pre-Code drama based a the real life fraças between singer Libby Holman and her husband, tobacco heir Zachary Smith Reynolds, who was found shot to death under mysterious circumstances in their apartment. Actress Leila Hyams plays the Holman stand-in, a torch singer who shares a stormy romance with gambling ship captain Paul Lukas. She escapes his clutches with a wealthy playboy (Don Dillaway), but after they marry she finds that her new husband is carrying on with a hotsy-totsy blonde — and that's where Joyce Compton comes in. Probably the best reason to see this hoary drama would be Leila Hyams, who is attractive and somewhat fragile in a way that reminds me of the slightly later Virginia Bruce. She also sings a few numbers in an agreeable (apparently non-dubbed) low voice. The story is p...

Kid Galahad is something of a gangster/boxing/romantic melodrama mishmash that somehow works thanks to the assured direction of Michael Curtiz and a phalanx of regulars from the Warner Bros. acting stable. Edward G. Robinson stars as a tough boxing manager with Bette Davis as his longtime gal. The two take notice of a swift-handed hotel bellhop (Wayne Morris) and groom him into a boxing ring champ. Davis' character Fluff finds herself romantically drawn to Morris, but Morris winds up taking a shine to Robinson's kid sister (Jane Bryan). This angers the protective Robinson so much that he decides to engineer a fight sure to put the young pugilist in a body cast. While the script ventures into overly familiar territory, this film ends up being a winner due to great work by Robinson and Davis, along with several stirring, realistic fight scenes. Joyce Compton appears about 20 minutes into the film as a hanger-on at the huge party thrown in Edward G. Robinson's hotel suite....

Rhythm in the Clouds was another modest-budgeted musical that Joyce Compton briefly appeared in as comedy relief from all the (rather dull) singing and dancing. The story follows pretty blonde songwriter Patricia Ellis, who makes an impulsive decision to crash a well-known songwriter's apartment — submitting her own compositions as collaborations with the better-known but oblivious man. Neighbor William Hull is annoyed with the noisy Ellis living next door, but faster than you can say "unbelievable coincidence" he is selected to be the lyricist on her next would-be hit song (which gets a gala premiere on a popular local radio show). The song is a hit, and love blooms for the once-quarreling duo. Joyce contributes a small bright spot to this otherwise forgettable film as the secretary at the radio station where Ellis and Hull work. She played a lot of snappy steno gals around this time; Three Smart Girls (1936), Under Your Spell (1936), Rhythm in the Clouds (1937)...

The Edward G. Robinson actioner Manpower has a strangely magnetic pull on me; I first saw it in the early ’90s on one of my local UHF outlets’ pre- TCM version of the “Late Late Show,” then jumped when the film finally became available on DVD via the Warner Archive . Part of its appeal it that, although it’s not an especially standout film in any particular area, it has a bit of something for everything mashed together in a way that somehow comes together beautifully. Robinson plays a power line worker who shares his dangerous vocation with a bunch of rowdy buddies which include Alan Hale, Frank McHugh (who does his signature nasal laugh a few times), Ward Bond, and best friend George Raft. Robinson is something of a big brother to the crew and takes it upon himself to aid the daughter of an elderly co-worker who dies in an accident. The daughter is an exotic beauty and ex-con played by Marlene Dietrich, whom the earnest Robinson falls for despite cynical pal Raft’s knowledge that s...

Joyce Compton's exposure in the screwball classic The Awful Truth led to a series of supporting roles in big-budget films for the actress, often playing the leading lady's best friend. The splashy, nostalgic Fox musical Rose of Washington Square was one example: Joyce appears here as Peggy, the perky pal of Alice Faye's sorta-based-on-Fanny-Brice Broadway musical comedy star, Rose Sargent. Rose of Washington Square is a typically handsome Fox production, a frothy and historically suspect period vehicle for the warmly appealing Faye. As a singer rising to fame in 1910s New York, she gets wooed by Tyrone Power as a smooth cad with a passing resemblance to Fanny Brice's second husband, Nicky Arnstein. This was a lighthearted and fun movie first and foremost, one made momentarily uncomfortable by Al Jolson playing himself in blackface makeup. Fifth-billed Joyce appears sporadically throughout the picture whenever Faye needs a shoulder to cry on; she even gets to share a ...