Whirlpool *** (1934, Jack Holt, Jean Arthur, Allen Jenkins, Donald Cook, Lila Lee) – Classic Movie Review 12,139

Jean Arthur (born Gladys Georgianna Greene on 17 October 1900).

Columbia Pictures’ 1934 romantic crime drama Whirlpool stars Jack Holt and Jean Arthur in her breakthrough role after 12 years in the film industry.

Director Roy William Neill’s 1934 Columbia Pictures romantic crime drama Whirlpool is based on a story by Howard Emmett Rogers, and stars Jack Holt, Jean Arthur, Allen Jenkins, Donald Cook and Lila Lee.

Jack Holt puts in a moving performance as a shady carnival owner called Buck Rankin, who marries Helen (Lila Lee), but is sent to jail for 20 years for manslaughter over the death of a man in a fight. She refuses to divorce him, so in jail he fakes his own suicide to allow pregnant Helen to lead a free life. On release he is united with Sandra (Jean Arthur), the 20-year-old daughter he has never seen. Rankin has changed his name to Duke Sheldon and become a mob-linked nightclub owner. Helen has unwittingly bigamously remarried a local judge and Sandra has become a reporter. Duke Sheldon will be providing a mobster’s alibi at a high-profile trial and Sandra is sent to write an exposé.

Whirlpool is a handsomely made, well-plotted tear-jerking melodrama that benefits greatly from Holt’s strong central performance, a typically gutsy turn from Jean Arthur, and good support by Allen Jenkins, Donald Cook and Lila Lee.

The screenplay by Dorothy Howell and Ethel Hill gets a huge boost from the quality of the acting, and the progress of the complicated plot gets over some soppy sentimentality and ends with a satisfying bang.

It proved the breakthrough movie role for Jean Arthur after years of graft in Hollywood running back to 1923. Frank Capra viewed Arthur’s scenes and convinced studio boss Harry Cohn to have Columbia Studios sign her up as Babe Bennett for his all-time great Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936).

The cast are Jack Holt as Buck Rankin (aka Duke Sheldon), Jean Arthur as Sandra Rankin Morrison, Donald Cook as Bob Andrews, Allen Jenkins as Mac, Lila Lee as Helen Rankin Morrison, John Miljan as Barney Gaige, Rita La Roy as Thelma, Oscar Apfel as Newspaper Editor, Willard Robertson as Judge Jim Morrison, and Ward Bond as Farley.

Whirlpool is directed by Roy William Neill, runs 80 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Dorothy Howell and Ethel Hill, is shot in black and white by Benjamin H Kline, is produced by Robert North and is scored by Louis Silvers (composer: stock music/ musical director).

Jean Arthur (born Gladys Georgianna Greene on 17 October 1900) was a Democrat, who supported the presidential election campaigns of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and John F Kennedy in 1960. After she died from heart failure on 19 June 1991 at the age of 90, there was no funeral service.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,139

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