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The best friend a Texas orphan ever had is Edna Gladney. Aged 55 and now resident in Fort Worth, she founded the Texas Children's Home & Aid Society, worked hard to persuade the Legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from orphans and children born out of wedlock. She provides living documentation for Greer Carson's cinematic re-creation of her life and times.
The story begins in 1906 in the Gladney home in Wisconsin, where Edna's adopted sister commits suicide after her fiance's parents object to their marriage on grounds that she is an orphan. It continues through Edna's marriage to a Texas flour miller (Walter Pidgeon), the death of their young son and the eventual establishment of the Fort Worth home.
That this plot, hackneyed though true, turns out to be an acceptable motion picture is mainly due to the tasteful direction of Mervyn Le Roy and an eloquent performance by Miss Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips), whose green eyes, red hair and alabaster complexion make her a tech nicolor natural. Somewhat over-tearful and talky, Blossoms nevertheless manages to have its say without growing maudlin or boring. It probably sets an all-time high for Hollywood cinemoppets — 750 of them play the blossoms in the dust.
Tight Shoes (Universal) is another cinemadventure into Damon Runyon's jocular cosmos (Three Wise Guys, Lady For A Day} whose offbeat inhabitants pursue their larcenous ways with the righteousness of rugged individualists and a language out of this world. As such, it is a bright little, daffy little farce which sparkles when it remains in Runyonland, falls on its face when it leaves home. Half the time it is on the road.
As Speedy Miller, immense Broderick Crawford plays a disarming mug with a one-cylinder brain whose stubborn vanity leads him to purchase a pair of fancy shoes that are too small for his feet. The punishment he undergoes persuades him to bet his own, his friends', his employer's and his stripteasing girlfriend's (Binnie Barnes) funds on Feet First, a horse which is strictly a hay bag and fails to win. The denouement has no point, and needs none.
Sample Runyon Broadwayese out of Crawford: "I'm downcast no end, boss.
... I would be kindly disposed toward a dollar, even if I had to work for it."