By Frank Miller
The Kid from Kokomo
Brief Synopsis
A fight manager decides his client needs a family for publicity purposes.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Lewis Seiler
Director
Pat O'brien
Billy Murphy
Wayne Morris
Homer Baston
Joan Blondell
Doris Harvey
May Robson
Maggie Martin [Manell]
Jane Wyman
Marian Bronson
Film Details
Also Known As
Broadway Cavalier
Genre
Comedy
Drama
Sports
Release Date
May
23,
1939
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 35m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
10 reels
Synopsis
After selling off twice his actual stake in fighter Curley Bender, fast-talking boxing manager Billy Murphy, his wily sweetheart, Doris Harvey, and his assistant, Eddie Black, leave town to scour the countryside for a new boxer to manage. Their search takes them to Kokomo, Indiana, where they discover the talents of Homer Baston, an orphan left on the doorstep of two old men more than twenty years previously with a note from his mother promising to return. Homer rejects Billy's offer to go on the road and fight professionally and insists on waiting in Kokomo for his mother to return. After failing to entice Homer with the promise of winning a million dollars, Billy and Doris manage to convince him that touring the country as a fighter will increase his chances of finding his mother. However, when Homer becomes homesick for Kokomo and decides to leave them, Billy and Doris trick him into believing that his mother has contacted them with news of her plans to join her son. To prove it, Billy shows Homer a picture of James Whistler's painting "Portrait of My Mother," and the gullible orphan says that she is everything he thought she would be. Faced with the problem of actually having to produce a mother for Homer, Billy finds an old, drunken kleptomaniac, Maggie Manell, at the courthouse. After paying her bail and promising Judge Bronson to care for her, Billy dresses her up to look like the "Mother" in Whistler's portrait and takes her to meet her long lost son. Homer immediately takes to Maggie, but the plan backfires when he announces that he no longer needs to box now that he has found his mother. After learning that a great deal of prize money is at stake, Maggie encourages her son to fight and quickly takes over the management of his finances. Meanwhile, Homer becomes enamoured with Marian Bronson, a reporter. Maggie soon squanders all of Homer's winnings as he punches his way to the championship, but Doris and Billy devise a plan to stop her by bringing in her ex-lover, jailbird Muscles Malone, and paying him to tell Homer the truth about Maggie. Unfortunately, their plans fail when Maggie introduces Muscles to Homer as his father and Muscles goes along with the ruse. After setting their engagement, Marian and Homer throw a dinner party so that his parents can meet her parents. When Maggie and Muscles realize that Marian's father is the judge who handled their cases, they try to flee, but Billy and Doris stop them. Later, when Maggie gets into trouble with some racketeers for writing a bad check, she and Muscles try to avoid being arrested by convincing Homer to take a dive in the championship fight against Curley Bender and fix the fight in favor of the racketeers. Eventually, Maggie becomes troubled by all the lies that Homer has been told and tells him the truth about her. Homer refuses to accept the truth and believes that she is merely behaving as any selfless mother would when her son is in a fix. Though he had intended to lose the fight, Homer knocks out Curley when Curley insults his mother, and Homer is announced the winner. In retribution, the racketeers tie up Homer and Muscles, but the two manage to escape when a blustering fight between Maggie's strongmen and the racketeers ensues. All ends happily when Homer decides to adopt Maggie and Muscles as his parents, and when the judge marries Homer to Marian and Muscles to Maggie.
Director
Lewis Seiler
Director
Cast
Pat O'brien
Billy Murphy
Wayne Morris
Homer Baston
Joan Blondell
Doris Harvey
May Robson
Maggie Martin [Manell]
Jane Wyman
Marian Bronson
Stanley Fields
Muscles [Malone]
Maxie Rosenbloom
Curley Bender
Sidney Toler
Judge Bronson
Ed Brophy
Eddie Black
Winifred Harris
Mrs. Bronson
Morgan Conway
Louie
John Ridgely
Sam
Ward Bond
Klewicki
Paul Hurst
First old man
Tom Wilson
Second old man
Frank Hagney
Third old man
Bob Perry
Fourth old man
Frank Mayo
Durb
Al Hill
Lippy
Clem Bevans
Jim
Olin Howland
Stan
Reid Kilpatrick
Radio announcer
John Harron
Radio announcer
Mickey Mcavoy
Simonich
Charles Sullivan
Radio referee
Cliff Saum
Cop
Jack Goodrich
First reporter
Eddie Graham
Second reporter
Sidney Bracy
Janitor
Edgar Edwards
Sportswriter
Jeffrey Sayre
Sportswriter
Jack Roper
Fighter
Bob Ryan
Referee
Charles Randolph
Referee
Jack Mower
Hotel clerk
Nat Carr
Court clerk
Dick Wessel
Pug
Frederick Clarke
Black butler
Tom Mcguire
Old man
Herbert Evans
Bronson's butler
Loia Cheaney
Bronson's maid
Dudley Dickerson
Rubber
Ned Crawford
Young cop
Robert Homans
Old cop
Emmett Vogan
Fight announcer
Crew
Frank Beckwith
Dialogue Director
Sam Bischoff
Associate Producer
Hugh Cummings
Dialogue Director
Elmer Decker
Assistant Director
Adolph Deutsch
Music
Michael Fessier
Contract Writer
Leo F. Forbstein
Music Director
Sid Hickox
Photography
John Hughes
Art Director
Millard Kaufman
Original Story
Jack Killifer
Film Editor
Charles Lang
Sound
Ring Lardner Jr.
Contract Writer
Richard Macaulay
Screenwriter
Howard Shoup
Gowns
Jerry Wald
Screenwriter
Film Details
Also Known As
Broadway Cavalier
Genre
Comedy
Drama
Sports
Release Date
May
23,
1939
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 35m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
10 reels
Articles
The Kid from Kokomo
Motherhood takes it on the chin in this fast-moving farce from Warner Bros. Studio standbys. Pat O'Brien and Joan Blondell star as a boxing manager and his ex-stripper girlfriend. When they spot a promising slugger (Wayne Morris) in Kokomo, IN, the only way they can get him to fight for them is by promising to help him find his long-lost mother. The kid is such a dim-bulb they convince him that Whistler's Mother is a portrait of his own mom, then pass off hard-drinking kleptomaniac May Robson as the real thing. Morris had just starred in Kid Galahad (1937), so playing a dumbed-down version of that character was easy for him, while O'Brien and Blondell were old hands at slinging one-liners and taking pratfalls. But it's Robson who steals the film as the double-dealing old harridan, a farcical variation on her Oscar®-nominated performance as Apple Annie in Lady for a Day (1933). The film also features an early appearance by Jane Wyman as Morris' love interest, who just happens to be the daughter of the judge who almost sent Robson up the river.
By Frank Miller
By Frank Miller
The Kid from Kokomo
Motherhood takes it on the chin in this fast-moving farce from Warner Bros. Studio standbys. Pat O'Brien and Joan Blondell star as a boxing manager and his ex-stripper girlfriend. When they spot a promising slugger (Wayne Morris) in Kokomo, IN, the only way they can get him to fight for them is by promising to help him find his long-lost mother. The kid is such a dim-bulb they convince him that Whistler's Mother is a portrait of his own mom, then pass off hard-drinking kleptomaniac May Robson as the real thing. Morris had just starred in Kid Galahad (1937), so playing a dumbed-down version of that character was easy for him, while O'Brien and Blondell were old hands at slinging one-liners and taking pratfalls. But it's Robson who steals the film as the double-dealing old harridan, a farcical variation on her Oscar®-nominated performance as Apple Annie in Lady for a Day (1933). The film also features an early appearance by Jane Wyman as Morris' love interest, who just happens to be the daughter of the judge who almost sent Robson up the river.
By Frank Miller
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
A working title for this film was Broadway Cavalier. Though May Robson's character is credited as "Maggie Martin" in the onscreen credits, within the film, her name is spoken as "Maggie Manell."
