By Frank Miller
Big Hearted Herbert
Brief Synopsis
A plumber's business success makes him neglect his family.
Cast & Crew
Read More
William Keighley
Director
Aline Macmahon
Elizabeth [Kalness]
Guy Kibbee
Herbert [Kalness]
Patricia Ellis
Alice [Kalness]
Helen Lowell
Martha
Phillip Reed
Andrew [Goodrich]
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Adaptation
Release Date
Oct
6,
1934
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Productions Corp.
Distribution Company
The Vitaphone Corp.; Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Big Hearted Herbert by Sophie Kerr and Anna Steese Richardson (New York, 1 Jan 1934) which is based on the short story "Chin-Chin" by Sophie Kerr in The Saturday Evening Post (12 May 1923).
Technical Specs
Duration
60m
Film Length
6 reels
Synopsis
Herbert Kalness loves his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Alice and his two sons, Robert and Junior, but his affection is hard to discern behind his constant criticism. A self-made man who now manufactures plumbing fixtures, Herbert insists that Junior, his oldest son, come into the business, even though Junior would rather go to college and study engineering, like his uncle, Jim Lawrence. Herbert scorns college men and men with family wealth and pretends to be much poorer than he is. Alice has become engaged to Andrew Goodrich during a visit with her Uncle Jim and Aunt Amy. To celebrate their engagement, Elizabeth invites the Goodriches and Lawrences to dinner. Everybody anticipates Herbert's anger over the engagement announcement. Not only is Alice, at nineteen, too young to marry in Herbert's opinion, but Andy is a lawyer and a Harvard man. To make matters worse, Alice, anxious to make a good impression at the dinner, asks her mother to remove a portrait of Herbert's father and a brass cuspidor, the only two things in the house that Herbert seems to value. When Herbert comes home, he predictably makes a big fuss, insisting that he is a simple man of the people who grew up in poverty without the help of servants or college. He offends all the guests, driving them away before they even sit down. Elizabeth decides that Herbert needs to be taught a lesson, and when he brings some customers to dinner, she turns the tables on him. She removes all the improvements she has made in the house and encourages the whole family to act like rubes. Herbert is taken aback, and Elizabeth insists that if Herbert doesn't act in a civilized manner, she will leave. Brought to his senses, Herbert agrees that Alice can marry Andy, and Junior can go to college while Robert joins him in business.
Director
William Keighley
Director
Cast
Aline Macmahon
Elizabeth [Kalness]
Guy Kibbee
Herbert [Kalness]
Patricia Ellis
Alice [Kalness]
Helen Lowell
Martha
Phillip Reed
Andrew [Goodrich]
Robert Barrat
Jim [Lawrence]
Henry O'neill
Goodrich, Sr.
Marjorie Gateson
Amy Lawrence
Nella Walker
Mrs. Goodrich
Trent Durkin
Junior Kalness
Jay Ward
Robert Kalness
Hale Hamilton
Mr. Havens
Claudia Coleman
Mrs. Havens
Milton Kibbee
MacGregor
Joseph Crehan
Investigator
George Chandler
Murphy
Gay Seabrook
Secretary
Crew
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Adaptation
Release Date
Oct
6,
1934
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Productions Corp.
Distribution Company
The Vitaphone Corp.; Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Big Hearted Herbert by Sophie Kerr and Anna Steese Richardson (New York, 1 Jan 1934) which is based on the short story "Chin-Chin" by Sophie Kerr in The Saturday Evening Post (12 May 1923).
Technical Specs
Duration
60m
Film Length
6 reels
Articles
Big Hearted Herbert -
From the moment Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee played their first comic flirtation scene in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), audiences were in love. Something about the pairing of the sleek, exotic looking MacMahon, who could crack wise with the best of them, and the short, pudgy Kibbee, often the butt of jokes because his characters' foolishness, made them a perfect screen pair. Gold Diggers was actually their third film together, but the first in which they shared any major amount of screen time. Warner Bros. would re-team them five more times, mostly in low-budget domestic comedies that pit the bumbling Kibbee against the all-too-capable MacMahon. For this 1934 adaptation of a hit play, Kibbee is surprisingly bellicose as a self-made man, a plumbing tycoon who won't let anyone, including wife MacMahon and their three children, that he made it on his own and has no time for the rich or well-educated. When his cantankerous ways threaten daughter Patricia Ellis's engagement to a wealthy young lawyer, MacMahon turns the tables on her husband to the delight of their many fans. Featured in the cast are veteran players like Henry O'Neil and Marjorie Gateson, and tragic juvenile Junior Durkin, who would die in a car crash a year later.
By Frank Miller
By Frank Miller
Big Hearted Herbert -
From the moment Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee played their first comic flirtation scene in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), audiences were in love. Something about the pairing of the sleek, exotic looking MacMahon, who could crack wise with the best of them, and the short, pudgy Kibbee, often the butt of jokes because his characters' foolishness, made them a perfect screen pair. Gold Diggers was actually their third film together, but the first in which they shared any major amount of screen time. Warner Bros. would re-team them five more times, mostly in low-budget domestic comedies that pit the bumbling Kibbee against the all-too-capable MacMahon. For this 1934 adaptation of a hit play, Kibbee is surprisingly bellicose as a self-made man, a plumbing tycoon who won't let anyone, including wife MacMahon and their three children, that he made it on his own and has no time for the rich or well-educated. When his cantankerous ways threaten daughter Patricia Ellis's engagement to a wealthy young lawyer, MacMahon turns the tables on her husband to the delight of their many fans. Featured in the cast are veteran players like Henry O'Neil and Marjorie Gateson, and tragic juvenile Junior Durkin, who would die in a car crash a year later.
By Frank Miller
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film was remade by First National in 1940 as Father Is a Prince (see below).
