Shoot the Works
Cast & Crew
Wesley Ruggles
Jack Oakie
Ben Bernie
Dorothy Dell
Alison Skipworth
Roscoe Karns
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Nicky Nelson runs a small carnival on New York's 42nd Street under the auspices of Nicky Nelson Enterprises, which consists of Joe Davis and his band, stunt man "Sailor" Burke and his gold digger wife Jackie, and The Countess, a matronly woman who takes tickets at Nicky's various attractions. Down on his luck with a profitless whale attraction, Nicky, at heart a songwriter, tries to audition for vaudeville agent Axel Hanratty, who turns him out. In Hanratty's offices, however, Nicky meets blonde singer Lily Racquel. Lily, impressed with Nicky's song, asks him to drum up a vaudeville act with her and gives him a ring to hock to purchase an act. Instead, Nicky, a compulsive gambler and foolish idealist, loses Lily's money shooting craps with Hanratty, then tells her he bought the act. Joe, his band, Sailor and Jackie then abandon Nicky's outfit, and Joe borrows Lily for his nightclub act. Nicky and Lily improve the lyrics on his song and swear their love; however, in an attempt to win back Lily's ring so he can propose, Nicky loses both it and the song to Hanratty. During Joe's opening show at the Yellow Dragon Cafe, Lily sings Nicky's song, and Hanratty, in the audience with radio man Alvin Ritchie, decides to hire the band and the girl. When Ritchie offers Lily a chance to sing the song on a radio broadcast, she insists Nicky be included, but Hanratty reminds her he now owns the song. Lily turns her back on Nicky, and she and Joe replace gossip columnist Larry Hale's "Broadway Chatter" segment on Ritchie's radio program and are a big success. Joe then advances to the Varsity Club, a collegiate bar, and finally opens his own nightclub, the Club Kent. Ritchie, meanwhile, courts Lily, while Nicky works at a flea circus, slowly earning enough money to buy back Lily's ring. When she receives it, she visits Nicky, who tells her he doesn't want her back and is leaving for Iowa in the morning, to join the Bartow Wonder Shows. The Countess then convinces Nicky to spend his last night in New York with the old gang at Joe's opening at Club Kent. There, Ritchie has Joe announce his engagement to Lily, whom he expects to give up her work after marriage. When Nicky hears the announcement, he runs out. Hale then learns of the old romance between Nicky and Lily and approaches Nicky for fuel for his scandal sheet, but Nicky socks him and he lands in the hospital. Struck by Nicky's love for Lily, Hale turns soft and uses his broadcasting powers to blackmail Ritchie into backing out of the marriage. Lily and Nicky marry and he becomes the new emcee for Ritchie's show.
Director
Wesley Ruggles
Cast
Jack Oakie
Ben Bernie
Dorothy Dell
Alison Skipworth
Roscoe Karns
Arline Judge
William Frawley
Lew Cody
Paul Cavanagh
Ben Bernie's Lads
Monte Vandergrift
Jill Dennett
Lee Kohlmar
Tony Merlo
Ben Taggart
Charles Mcavoy
Frank Prince
Crew
Harold Adamson
Ben Bernie
Claude Binyon
Walt Bullock
Hans Dreier
Al Goering
Mack Gordon
Howard J. Green
Albert Lewis
M. M. Paggi
Ralph Rainger
Harry Revel
Leo Robin
Leo Tover
Robert Usher
Adolph Zukor
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film's working titles were The Great Magoo and Thank Your Stars. According to New York Times, "Shoot the Works" was originally the title of a revue written by Heywood Broun (New York, 21 July 1931) and Paramount adopted the title for this film. As reported in Daily Variety, as a publicity stunt, Paramount sent a print of this film to Washington, D.C. for screening on the inaugural voyage of American Airlines' service between Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The film opened in Washington, D.C. on July 6, 1934. According to Variety, the songs "Take a Lesson from the Lark" and "Good Old Wintertime" were credited on the reviewer's program but were not performed in the film. Although Paul Cavanagh's character is listed as "Bill Ritchie" in the credits, he is called "Alvin Ritchie" in the film. The Variety review states, "Stripped of its inside show stuff the story is thin but Producer Al Lewis has fortified that with some smart realizations. The pole-sitter; the inside of a vaude agent's office; the chowmeinery from which Bernie graduates into the hotcha collegiate nitery, called the Varsity, and finally into the swank Russe nite club, are other settings that lend themselves nicely to staging. There's also some authentic, albeit brief midway and carny atmosphere." This film marks radio personality Ben Bernie's screen debut. Bernie, known to network radio audiences as "The Old Maestro," had one of radio's most popular variety shows in the 1930s. He was famous for his standard opening line, "Yowsah, yowsah. Greetings and salutations, my friends," and his closing line, "pleasant dreeeams." Bernie and Walter Winchell's radio "feud," a publicity stunt (parodied in this film) reportedly made Bernie a household name across America. A sampling of Bernie's jabs, as quoted in a modern source, reads as follows: "I don't know why all them oil companies have to go to Ethiopia for gas when it would be just so easy to lay a pipeline direct to Winchell!" Shoot the Works was remade by Paramount in 1939 as Some Like It Hot starring Bob Hope (see below). The remake is not related to the Tony Curtis-Jack Lemmon hit of 1959.
