Small Town Boy

"Small Town Boy" is a film that is frustrating to watch. This is because there is a kernel of a good story, but the writing really lets the audience down due to outrageous characters who just don't make any sense...and they frustrate as well.

Henry Armstrong (Stu Erwin) is a nice guy...too nice a guy. He has folks walking all over him because he cannot set up reasonable boundaries. In particular, his brother is a bum...and his mother, unreasonably, expects Henry to pay his bum brother to do nothing with his life. Because he's being bled dry by this duo, his prospects for marrying his sweetheart are bleak. However, when he finds a $1000 bill, his life is about to change....and not the way you'd expect.

As I mentioned, the characters in the story are poorly written. Henry's mother is supposed to be funny...but she comes off more like an over-the-top Disney villain than a real person. Subtle, she ain't! As for Henry, NO ONE is this much of a milquetoast...and it's frustrating to see so many people mistreat him without his ever complaining. He comes off more as an annoying putz than a nice guy. I really think having folks be less black/white and more realistic really would have helped the film. I think much of this is because the movie is a B-movie from Grand National...a company that almost always made third-rate films. A better company with higher standards would have rewritten the story to make it better. It's a shame because a competent company could have done a great job with this and Erwin is still a likable lead.

Insurance salesman Stu Erwin discovers a one-thousand-dollar bill on the street. Being an honest fellow, he advertises for its true owner. This earns him the approval of the newspaper editor and his father, Jed Prouty, but everyone around him thinks he's a fool. When no one claims the money, he finds reserves of strength and self-reliance in himself.

I was hampered in my enjoyment of this movie by Erwin's typical performance in the beginning as a depressed, trod-upon hick, browbeaten by mother Clara Blandick, his boss, Clarence Wilson, and so forth. For some reason, two girls love him in this one: Joyce Compton, who is given little to do; and Dorothy Appleby, who is a helium-voiced nitwit. It picks up a little as Erwin gains in confidence. He was, after all, a competent actor, so it ends decently. But getting to that stage was not filled with smiles. With John T. Murray, Lew Kelly, and Victor Potel.

Stuart Erwin deserved better than this slice of B movie Americana with overage leads. Directed by Tryon, the leading man from LONESOME and father of Tom, it makes a worthwhile attempt to break with the over familiar forms of second feature knockabout, but invention isn't equal to ambition.

The plot has Erwin's life transformed, from mother dominated insurance salesman to go getter, by the discovery of a thousand dollar note. This cut price Mark Twain stuff is interrupted by unfunny routines like the horse standing on the bill or George Chandler's demonstration of the brakes failed car.

The attempt to show back blocks US on which it all pivots is undermined because it looks more like B movie US. Still the piece has more interest than most of what was done on that budget.

Stuart Erwin deserved better than this slice of B movie Americana with overage leads. Directed by Tryon, the leading man from LONESOME and father of Tom, it makes a worthwhile attempt to break with the over familiar forms of second feature knockabout, but invention isn't equal to ambition.

The plot has Erwin's life transformed, from mother dominated insurance salesman to go getter by the discovery of a thousand dollar note. This cut price mark Twain stuff is undercut by unfunny routines like the horse standing on the bill or George Chandler's demonstration of the brakes failed car.

The attempt to show back blocks US on which it all pivots is undermined because it looks more like B movie US. Still the piece has more interest than most of what was done on that budget.