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... because I recognize his trademark wit in some of the one liners. I can also see how some material may have gotten lost in translation while adapting it to the screen.

Paul Vanderkill (John Boles) manages his family's extensive New York City real estate holdings. His aunt Sophie drops by one day and is horrified that the Loveland Dance Hall is renting out some of their real estate. Paul says he will investigate and ensure that the place is decent. You can tell this really doesn't trouble him, he just wants Aunt Sophie humored and out of the way. It turns out it is one of those "ten cents a dance" places that were common during the Great Depression.

When Paul arrives at the dance hall, he first encounters Madelaine (Nancy Carroll). He wants to ask some questions about the place. Why he doesn't go straight to the manager is unclear, except that maybe he wants a straightforward explanation and figures he's more likely to get one from one of the girls who works there, plus we'd have no story if he simply talked to management. Madelaine gets the idea that the Paul is poor. He doesn't correct her impression, and he is surprised by her generosity to someone to whom she doesn't believe has much. He buys enough dance tickets to cover the entire evening and leaves with her. At this point she begins to realize he is not poor.

It's fun watching them have difficulties with each other's speech patterns. Paul has the remains of his Dutch ancestors' accent. Madelaine has a working class New York vocabulary.

"Did you call me a witch? For a minute I thought you said something else!" And so on.

The two get to know each other and fall in love. But Paul doesn't want to get married because - reasons. It really isn't clear. He keeps talking about having "a daughter with modern ideas" and that he doesn't want any scandal to touch her. How marrying Madeleine is scandalous is either some lame excuse not to get permanently entangled or it is really insulting because deep down he considers her beneath him and THAT would be a scandal in his estimation. It is never explained. Nor do we ever get a glimpse of this modern daughter of his.

So what happens when two people live together in 1933 when there is no birth control? I imagine you can figure out what happens. How both people handle the situation - watch and find out.

Preston Sturges was never one to humor illusions about noble poverty. Madelaine's family is what you'd expect of a group of people who are weighed down by a lifetime of poverty and the more severe and recent Depression. Mom is coarse, untrusting, and definitely not nurturing. Dad is probably dead but unmentioned - maybe he ran off. Her brother is a layabout and a moocher. Her younger sister has just one scene where she cries.

And there are characters who wander in and out of the film. I've mentioned Madelaine's family - they disappear during the second half never to be seen again. Instead, up pops Maddy's Aunt Minnie (Jessie Ralph) who is everything Maddie's mother is not - supportive, nurturing, and generous. Wherever did she come from? It is never explained.

It would be nice to have more information on the source material, because there are holes in the plot and in the cast that might be explained in Preston Sturges' play. I'd recommend this because John Boles is a much better actor than his early talkie song bird reputation would have you believe, and Nancy Carroll always grabs my attention. Her career would have gone on much longer had she not been so hard to get along with on the set. She did, though, have a very successful stage career and then made numerous guest appearances on TV as well.

CHILD OF MANHATTAN is a Columbia Studios precode starring Nancy Carroll and John Boles. When millionaire Boles' aunt Clara Blandick is horrified to learn one of the family properties is being leased to "a dance hall with naked girls" Boles promises to check the establishment out. There he discovers it's a low-class "dime a dance" hall but is immediately smitten with one of the girls employed there, earthy but sweet Carroll. Boles is charmed by her lack of pretensions and touched by her concern for him when she thinks he is unemployed. Nancy Carroll eventually learns Boles is "the" Paul Vanderkill, one of New York's richest men. They fall genuinely in love but nevertheless in a man and mistress relationship, in part because of Boles' concern for his (never seen) teen-aged daughter (presumably much as he admires Carroll, she is not the kind of woman he wants his young daughter to emulate). Carroll eventually finds herself expecting which leads to a secret marriage and, ultimately, tragedy. In true Hollywood tragedy fashion, there is a happy ending.

CHILD OF MANHATTAN is a fast-moving low-key melodrama based on a play by the then unknown Preston Sturges (who surely is the source for the many delightful and at times quite racy comic quips that occasionally dot the screenplay). Nancy Carroll, still quite young but already with her major career behind her as a Paramount star and one of the biggest draws in the first years of "talkies", is quite good as the somewhat incredible bimbo with a heart of gold. John Boles is as dashing and romantic as always, his sideburns tinted white to suggest a man of middle-age (in his first scene he wears a quite contemporary haircut with thick hair at the top and very thin along the bottom) yet his character too is a bit unbelievable (although he projects a romantic charisma that could probably lead just about anyone down the primrose path). Cowboy star Buck Jones makes a rare appearance in a non-western as one of Carroll's less successful suitors and there are excellent cameos by character actresses Clara Blandick as Boles' aunt, Jane Darwell as Carroll's Irish mother, and most especially Jessie Ralph as the ladies room attendant at the dance hall who is a surrogate aunt to Carroll. Luis Alberni is fun as Carroll's Mexican divorce lawyer who is always murmuring my review title when meeting new people. 15-year-old Betty Grable has a bit (surprisingly billed) as Carroll's young sister in one brief scene. CHILD OF MANHATTAN is no classic but worth the 69 minutes if you are intrigued by precodes.

Don't let the wedlock baby fool you. This is a version of the fairy-tale Cinderella story popular with Depression era audiences of the time. It comforts folks with the idea that rags- to-riches lightning may strike them if they just get noticed by a benevolent rich person, in this case John Boles with the rather double-edge name of "Vanderkill". What's suggested is that rescue from desperate economic conditions lies with joining established wealth instead of joining with other desperate folks to improve the common economic condition. I don't know how the screenplay compares with Sturges' stage play, but what's there on the screen looks processed in typical Hollywood fashion.

I realize this kind of perspective is unwelcome to most viewers who simply want to be entertained in engaging fashion. Certainly Nancy Caroll does that with a winning performance as the down-trodden girl. Her sheer spunk in the early scenes carries the movie, at the same time I couldn't help thinking how much her big eyes, high cheek bones and flattened hair-do resemble the popular Betty Boop character of the time. Too bad the rest of the cast doesn't come up to her level, especially Buck Jones' Panama Kelly whose unbelievably gallant nature helps produce the fairy tale outcome. Note also, how actual Depression era conditions are not allowed to intrude on the enclosed world of the lovers. To be fair, that may simply have resulted from a tight budget. But if so, the constraints help produce what appears to be the desired overall effect.

Whatever the movie's internal qualities, the relevance of the underlying message to that historical period needs to be pointed out. Because no matter how much we may wish otherwise, history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

I admit I obtained this film because I wanted to see John Boles' performance (he's always been a heart throb of mine) but it was Nancy Carroll's superb and sensitive performance of a common dance hall girl from Brooklyn with a heart of gold which kept me watching, especially considering the poor quality of the print I obtained.

With this multi-faceted performance Nancy proved she was capable of much more than silly flapper roles. Her character is not self-serving in the least, while John Boles' character Paul is indecipherable. After admitting he is totally in love with the dance hall girl he then states he doesn't want to marry her. An unexpected pregnancy forces his hand and he does the honorable thing by marrying her, but the marriage is a secret one. We are to assume it was to protect his older daughter, but since we never see this daughter we don't have much sympathy for Paul's concerns.

The audience receives a typical happy Hollywood ending in Child of Manhattan but somehow it doesn't quite fit the sum total of the film.

Watch Child Of Manhattan (if you can find it) to see Nancy Carroll at her best.

Update: TCM has recently broadcast this film in a lovely print. That's the one to see.

Enjoyed this story of a girl named Madeleine McGonegal, played by Nancy Carroll, who was a girl who worked in a dance hall where the purchase of a ticket allowed you to dance with a girl of your choosing. This dance hall is owned by a very wealthy man named Paul Vanderkill, (John Boles) who once a week visits his establishment to see that things are running according to his rules of conduct. Boles meets up with a dance hall girl named Madeleine McGonegal and is interested in her down to earth personality and her being so outspoken and honest about herself. Madeleine does not realize John Boles is her big boss and that he is very wealthy and gets worried when he starts buying all kinds of expensive gifts. As the story progresses, Madeleine expects a baby and that is when the entire story changes and the drama begins and takes a new change in their marriage. Great acting by Nancy Carroll and John Boles and you will see Betty Grable, (Lucy) giving a great supporting role. Enjoy