Brooklyn Orchid
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Kurt Neumann
William Bendix
Joe Sawyer
Marjorie Woodworth
Grace Bradley
Skeets Gallagher
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Former Brooklyn taxicab drivers Tim McGuerin and Eddie Corbett now operate the successful Red Circle Cab Company. For their fifth wedding anniversary, Tim's social climbing wife Sadie, a former stripper, throws a sophisticated party featuring the famous classical pianist, Ignatz Rachkowsky. After Eddie and his domineering fiancée Mabel Cooney arrive, Mabel threatens to reveal Sadie's former profession because of an ongoing feud between them, and Eddie and Tim disrupt the party by practicing their casting techniques with fishing poles Eddie has brought as a gift. Escaping outside, Tim and Eddie throw their lines into the river and catch a drowning woman, Lucy Gibbs. After they revive her, Lucy, winner of a Coney Island Beauty Contest, which named her the "Brooklyn Orchid," is outraged that Tim and Eddie have foiled her suicide attempt. She then insists that she is theirs to do with as they please, as they are responsible for bringing her back to life. Although they think she is insane, she threatens to tell a policeman they pushed her in until they agree to take her home. Lucy explains that the contest ruined her life because neither other women nor her boyfriend trusted her after she became renowned. Tim and Eddie go to great lengths to keep Lucy hidden from their spouses, and hope to ditch her by taking Sadie and Mabel to a fashionable health resort. Lucy, however, follows them to the resort and poses as a wealthy socialite. Tim and Eddie interest playboy Tommy Goodweek in Lucy, sparking the curiosity of Sadie and Mabel, who finally meet her. Sadie and Mabel still do not suspect their husbands, even after Lucy tells her story, because she does not name them. Lucy and Goodweek then host a party at which Sadie engineers Mabel out of a dance with Tommy. Mabel gets so angry that she secretly sends the bandleader a note informing him that the famous "Broadway Bombshell" is in the room. The bandleader calls Sadie onto the dance floor to lead the Conga line, but when Eddie whispers to Lucy that Sadie is too embarrassed to admit her past, Lucy pretends to be her. Disgusted by her devious character, Eddie breaks off his engagement to Mabel and dances with Lucy. Outside by the pool, meanwhile, Sadie confronts Mabel with a dinner knife and rips her dress to shreds, then pushes Mabel into the pool. When Lucy offers Tim and Eddie fishing poles with which to retrieve their sweethearts, Mabel is enlightened, and boots Tim and Eddie into the pool as well.
Director
Kurt Neumann
Cast
William Bendix
Joe Sawyer
Marjorie Woodworth
Grace Bradley
Skeets Gallagher
Florine Mckinney
Leonid Kinskey
Rex Evans
Jack Norton
Crew
Charles D. Hall
Clarence Marks
Eddie Montagne
Robert Pittack
William Randall
Hal Roach
Roy Seawright
Earle Snell
Ray Snyder
W. L. Stevens
Edward Ward
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film marked William Bendix's first starring role. Bendix had a supporting role in Woman of the Year (see below), which had its New York premiere two weeks before the opening of this film. Although a Brooklyn Orchid production still shows actresses Patsy Mace, Aileen Haley, Muriel Barr, and Gwen Kenyon, their appearance in the completed film has not been confirmed. Brooklyn Orchid was also the first in a series of three films produced by Hal Roach, featuring Bendix, Grace Bradley, Joe Sawyer and Marjorie Woodworth as the fighting Brooklynites. Other films in the series, in which Bendix, Bradley and Sawyer recreated their roles are The McGuerins from Brooklyn and Taxi, Mister (see below). According to a modern source, the series was based on the 1931 M-G-M short film Come Clean, written by H. M. Walker, which featured the same characters. Brooklyn Orchid was also one of Roach's "streamlined features," a series of short comedies intended to fill the second half of a double bill. The first streamlined feature was the 1941 film Tanks a Million (see below).
