Crashin' Broadway
Cast & Crew
John Mccarthy Jr.
Rex Bell
Doris Hill
Harry Bowen
George Hayes
Charles King
Film Details
Synopsis
In 1902, Tad Wallace, self-billed as "The Clever Cowboy, A Breath of the West," auditions at a 3rd Avenue variety theater in New York, having left the West to succeed on Broadway spinning ropes and telling jokes. When he sees hoofers Sally Sunshine and Freddie Storm, billed as "Storm and Sunshine," being turned down by stage manager Levi, Tad offers to use Sally in his act, which Levi, looking for novelty, agrees to try. However, their act is a flop, principally because of Tad, and Levi fires them. After J. Talbot Thorndyke, a Shakespearean actor living at Sally's boardinghouse, gets a wire instructing him to assemble a repertory troupe for a four-week engagement opening in Kansas City, he agrees to train the performers at the boardinghouse, while Sally promises to get the $400 needed to get them to Kansas City. She visits Gus Jeffries, an admirer from the West, and after telling him that she needs the money to save her little brother's life, he gives it to her. As "The Bon Ton Players," the troupe leaves the citizens of Kansas City with memories of the worst show they've ever seen. When they arrive in Cactus Center, the troupe learns that the theater burned down the previous night. Theater owner John Griswold knows the perpetrator but refuses to charge him until he has proof. After theater devotee Mrs. Pinkham offers to put up the troupe at her ranch, Griswold's son rides up wounded and pursued by three men after having shot Jim Watson, the man whom he believed burned the theater. Jeffries, the leader, for whom Watson worked, demands the Griswold boy, but Tad fights him when Jeffries, recognizing Sally, is about to call her an insulting name. She then explains to Tad that she took Griswold's money knowing that he gave it only because he would eventually want sex in return, and that she plans to pay him back. Mrs. Pinkham explains that Griswold and Jeffries were partners once, but they split up because Jeffries was so crooked. Jeffries, who practically runs the town, had the theater burned to get even. The company announces a benefit for the theater, and Griswold makes a public threat to identify the man who burned his theater at the benefit, but on the day of the show, Jeffries and his men kill him. The troupe find the body, and following the first act of their melodrama, Thorndyke, made up to look like Griswold, astonishes Jeffries and his men, who shoot him. Jeffries escapes but Tad rides after him and subdues him. Later, he and Sally marry in a double wedding with Mrs. Pinkham and Thorndyke, who has his arm in a sling.
Director
John Mccarthy Jr.
Cast
Rex Bell
Doris Hill
Harry Bowen
George Hayes
Charles King
Henry Roquemore
Lewis Sargent
Vera Calbert
George Morrell
Perry Murdock
Anne Howard
George Chesebro
Blackie Whiteford
Max Asher
G. D. Wood
Blackie Colbert
Si Jenks
Crew
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Some sources call the film Crashing Broadway. According to a pressbook, this was Doris Hill's debut as a Monogram leading lady.
