Whom the Gods Destroy

Walter Connolly is a big shot Broadway producer who loves, in no particular order, the theater, his wife Doris Kenyon, and his son (played at various ages by Scotty Beckett, Macon Jones, and Robert Young). He's planning on a trip to London with wife and child, but first he has to retool his forthcoming production; by the time he can go, the school year has begun, and Miss Kenyon wants to stay with the boy.

So Connolly goes alone, and the ship sinks. Connolly gives his life preserver to a lady, and is helping the crew make sure it's women and children, when he has an attack of nerves, puts on an abandoned lady's coat and survives. There's mockery aplenty for the coward, but no one knows who he is. He is succored by Hobart Bosworth (in a small but typically beautiful performance). By the time he gets back to New York, there's a plaque on his theater proclaiming him a hero. He's ashamed, and hides, eventually becoming a puppeteer for tyrannical Henry Kolker.

Then his son quits college to produce his own play, and it's an embarrassing flop.

We're so used to Connolly in comedy roles, it's hard not to be astonished at his fine performance here. This being a Columbia movie, it's clear that director Walter Lang didn't have an extravagant budget, but his cast is a fine one, with Maidel Turner, Rollo Lloyd, Akim Tamiroff, and Walter Brennan in small roles. Young is appropriately callow. It's a little too sentimental for my taste, but certainly well done.