Times Square Lady

1935 "Country Girls Startles Broadway!"
Times Square Lady
5.9| 1h8m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 08 March 1935 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A young Iowa woman inherits her late estranged father's New York business, but the dead man's crooked associates think they can outwit the naive heir and seize control.

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MartinHafer Steve (Robert Taylor) is a gambler and his buddies are all gangsters. While he has a nice-guy persona, he's one of them and makes money rigging various sporting events and it's an ugly business. In the midst of this comes a nice lady, Toni (Virginia Bruce) and the two soon fall for each other. However, she doesn't know about Steve and her family's business interests and Steve eventually has a problem with his conscience. He loves her but his friends are killers and thugs. What to do?This is an okay movie but could have been a lot better and more biting. But, inexplicably, the film has a musical interesting, Pinky, who has absolutely no reason to be in the film and he's a completely lightweight character--and has no place in a film that should have had a lot more noir. Additionally, the ending really was too idealistic and difficult to believe. All in all, a decent set up but a dissatisfying conclusion.
Martha Wilcox There is nothing to commend this film. They call it a movie, but it fails to provide any engaging characters or compelling story. The script is poorly written, and the comedy in the film is just not funny. It's one of those films that has not stood the test of time and has become hard to find simply because it's not good. It comes nowhere near the quality of Robert Taylor's later films. His 1930s films are of a poor quality, and there is no star quality in any of them to indicate what he would become later in his career. I would say to all Taylor fans to stay away from this film as it provides no entertainment value nor is Taylor's performance up to the standard of what we would expect.
judithh-1 MGM studios released two films with Robert Taylor early in 1935. "Society Doctor", starring Chester Morris, Virginia Bruce and Robert Taylor premiered in January. "Times Square Lady" followed in March, starring Robert Taylor. Virginia Bruce and Pinky Tomlin. Lady is a solid gangster film, with a strong cast backing Taylor and Bruce. Isabel Jewell is Bruce's wise-cracking sidekick, Nat Pendleton is his valet, Helen Twelvetrees his girl. The rest of the cast consists mostly of a wonderfully slimy bunch of crooks played by Jack Kramer, Henry Kolker, Raymond Hatton, Russell Hopton, Fred Kohler and Robert Elliott.The plot is fairly straightforward. A wealthy promoter dies and his shady underlings assume they will take over his considerable holdings. To their surprise, the deceased had a daughter (Bruce) who is his sole heir. With a paternalism bordering on contempt, they plan to report to her that there is no money for her to inherit but they will take his properties off her hands for a fraction of their worth.To convince her to sell, the crooks stage some incidents to demonstrate how bad it all is. Gang member Robert Taylor is assigned to charm the lady out of her holdings. Taylor manages a nightclub and this introduces a subplot involving singer/songwriter Pinky Tomlin, creator of such songs as "The Object of My Affection" and "What's the Reason (I'm Not Pleasin' You?).Taylor frequently played dubious characters who find redemption in such films as "Rogue Cop" and "Johnny Eager." Here he is saved by his love for Miss Bruce's character. As happened not infrequently they were also a couple off screen.The last quarter of the film is filled with action, car chases, fights, shootings and a lot of double crossing. The film moves quickly and benefits from comic relief by Tomlin, Pendleton and a cow named either Daisy or Bossy.Robert Taylor is very young and very thin. The physical differences between the Taylor of "Times Square Lady" (filmed late 1934) and "His Brother's Wife" (filmed in 1936) are striking. Nonetheless he is effective here, combining toughness with energy and humor. Bruce and Taylor have good chemistry together. The film was generally well received in its day, with the New York Times calling it "a bit of light divertissement."
Arthur Hausner Robert Taylor, in his first leading role, manages a nightclub in this romantic crime drama. Virginia Bruce inherits that club as well as some other sporting places around town: a hockey team, a race track, a dog track, etc. Henry Kolker is a crooked lawyer trying to get her to sell her holdings at a fraction of their true worth on behalf of the other crooked managers. So they stage events to convince her (and a hockey player is killed as a result of a staged fight). Because she is so reluctant, Kolker has Taylor, as the most handsome of the bunch, to woo her and convince her to sell. But of course he falls in love instead, and his actions are then very predictable, as are the actions of the other managers, who do not take Taylor's betrayal lying down. The biggest attraction for me was the appearance of Pinky Tomlin, who has little to do with the plot. He's there to provide some comedy and to sing his very popular song "The Object of My Affection" and another lesser known song he co-wrote. Tomlin hasn't made many movies, so it's worth seeing this one to catch him in it.