If someone wanted to watch an old movie that had not a single leading actor at any time, and a cast with no one recognizable at all, "Hideaway" of 1937 would be a good one to point out. Of course, it might be hard to find a DVD, it probably never plays on any movie programs, and it would take some effort to find it. I just happened to come across it and was curious to see an actor in a lead role that I couldn't ever remember having seen before or even heard of.
Well, Fred Stone who plays the lead here, as Frankie Peterson, made fewer than 20 movies in his entire life. Although he had been a well-known circus performer around the turn of the 20th century (that's many moons ago), his short tenure in films could hardly be called an acting career. The only name likely to be recognized at all from this cast - and then only by diehard movie buffs and historians, is that of J. Carrol Naish. He plays the crook, Mike Clarke, aka John Knox.
Two others of the cast had film careers as supporting cast. But Emma Dunn's career from the early silent films ended in the mid-1940s. A rare old-time movie buff might recognize Marjorie Lord. After her film start in the 1930s, she moved to television mostly, and appeared in many series through the 1960s She was in just a few shows in the 1970s and a couple in the 1980s.
All of that is to say that those interested in old films and performers will find these performers the main reason to see this film. It's a comedy about a family of squatters in a rural area who just moved into an abandoned house and set up home for eight years. Only a crook in the big city actually bought the place years before and had kept it as a backup for a hideout if it was ever needed. Well, now and his three pals need it because they are on the lam from some bigger crooks for having stolen the loot from their crime operation.
There's very little comedy and just the thinnest of plots when the crooks hide their identify and come to board at the Peterson place. In the end, the perpetually lazy Frankie becomes a hero and the family inherits the homestead. This is an RKO film that is hard to imagine why it was made. My four stars are for the actors showing up to work on this very bland film.
Here's a line that's an example of what passes for comedy in this film.
Frankie Peterson, whom they all call Pa, "People from the city and folks from the country is as different as day and night. Now, remember that when we get home."
