Paddy the Next Best Thing (1933)
In Ireland, Major Adair’s older daughter Eileen is about to marry Lawrence Blake for his money in order to pay off her father’s debts, even though she really loves Jack Breen.
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Really Surprised!
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Something of a follow-up to the 1931 "Daddy Long Legs," which also had Janet Gaynor as a waif eventually won by the much, much older Warner Baxter, this one has her as Walter Connolly's spunky Irish daughter, whose older sister (nicely played by Margaret Lindsay) is about to marry Baxter for his money and thus retire Connolly's debts, though she loves Harvey Stephens, who is in fact infinitely more appealing than Warner Baxter. I've never understood Baxter's appeal, and Gaynor is pretty hard to take here, too, overdoing as she so often did at Fox her "love me, I'm an adorable little girl" persona. She doesn't even attempt an Irish accent, nor can we tell whether Baxter is supposed to be American, English, Irish, or Canadian. Connolly is wonderful, though, and the Irish atmosphere is winsome and convincing--if that's not Galway location shooting, it's the best imitation I've ever seen. It's pleasant enough, with more pacing than the early Fox talkies usually displayed, but not particularly worth seeking out.