Doubting Thomas (1935)

Doubting Thomas - 1935

Coming up next is 1935's "Doubting Thomas" starring Will Rogers.  A traveling businessman comes home to find his wife wants to go on the stage.  What's more, she's planning to make abandon the family and make her debut on Broadway.  Her husband desperately tries to keep her in the family home.

The film's excellent supporting cast includes Billie Burke, Alison Skipworth, Sterling Holloway, Andrew Tombes, Gail Patrick, Frances Grant, Frank Albertson, and Helen Flint.

The film opens with the Brown family having breakfast.  Thomas Brown (Rogers) is president of Brown's Breakfast Sausages.  His son's fiancee calls up and asks to borrow seventy-five dollars so she can pay for a screen test.  After they deny her the money, Thomas tells his son not to let her go on the stage once they marry.  He says that Mrs. Brown had the acting bug, but he married her before she could pursue it.  Matters aren't helped by the fact that Mrs. Pampinelli, the town's amateur theatrical director, is putting on a play and many of the citizens are involved.

Thomas has to go on a week-long trip to a sausage makers convention.  He may even have to make a speech.  "I'll make a speech alright, government tellin' us out how to run our business.  They know baloney, but we know sausage."

While Thomas is gone, Mrs. Pampinelli loses two members of the cast of her play.  She's got to find a replacement.  Quickly she recruits the Browns' future daughter-in-law, Peggy, and they come and ask Mrs. Brown if she'll also join the cast.  She readily accepts, saying she wished she hadn't given up acting when she was younger.

Thomas arrives home on the night his wife Paula is scheduled to hold a rehearsal for the play at their house.  He isn't at all thrilled about his wife going on the stage.  He is a bit happier that the rehearsal will be at their house.  "Well, I guess acting is like gettin' drunk.  If you got it to do, why, it's better to do it in your own home."

Thomas stays for the rehearsal, watching from a couch.  He keeps the ladies beside him laughing as he makes wisecracks about the performance.

After leaving the room to take a telephone call, Thomas comes back just as Paula receives her cue to go on.  He watches from the stairs and falls down them after he can't believe what kind of a part she's got.

The next day while watching some of the screen tests that are being made, Thomas gets an idea that might just stop his wife's acting aspirations.  He tells Jimmy that he's going to see the director of the screen tests the next day.

On the night of the town theatrical, Thomas lets it slip that he heard a big Hollywood movie director is going to be in the audience.  He asks the one he tells not to tell anybody.  She tells him she won't breathe it to a soul, before running over to spread the news to the cast.  "She won't breathe it to a soul," Thomas quips to Jimmy.  "She'll just exhale it to the world."

Of course, the play is a complete disaster.  Lots of noises backstage, missed cues, scenery that doesn't work right, a curtain that goes up and comes down to soon, actors tripping and fainting, mustaches falling off, etc.

Backstage, the imperious Mrs. Pampinelli is running her crew ragged and causing quite a lot of loud arguments.  "There's more going on backstage than there is out in front," says Thomas.

Though the play is supposed to be a drama, it performs like a comedy and that audience cracks up at every little thing.  (It's an absolutely hysterical show!)  "They could play this play again," says Thomas.  "People would pay more to see it from the back than they would from the front."  It's hilarious how the cast compliments themselves on how well they think the performance went.  Thomas doesn't see it that way at all.

Later, Paula tells Thomas that she wants to pursue a stage career.  He tells her it'd mean giving up her home, her husband, and her son.  She says she's made her decision and she's going ahead with her career.

Thomas tells his son he's still got one idea up his sleeve.  Later, while viewing the screen tests with the "famous Hollywood director", everybody is all excited to think this is their big chance.  However, the "director" disparages everyone's performances, except one.

It happens to be Thomas's own screen test.  It's awful.  He screeches at the top of his lungs as a "mature crooner".  The director says it's wonderful, a real personality.  He wants him to leave for Hollywood with him in one hour.  In reality, it's a vaudeville actor that Thomas hired to convince his wife to give up her actress ambitions.

Thomas starts packing right away.  Paula later finds out the everything was just a frame-up.  She isn't mad.  She thinks Thomas must love her a great deal to go to all the trouble of trying to keep her at home.  She won't give up being an actress, though.  "You have to be a very good actress to be a successful wife," Paula confides to someone.

Everything turns out all right in the end.  Thomas and Paula are happy to be together, and that's all that matters.

Cast rundown:

   Will Rogers...........................................Thomas Brown

   Billie Burke...........................................Paula Brown

   Alison Skipworth...................................Mrs. Betty Pampinelli

   Sterling Holloway...................................Mr. Spindler

   Andrew Tombes.....................................Huxley Hossefrosse

   Gail Patrick...........................................Florence McCrickett

   Frances Grant........................................Peggy Burns

   Frank Albertson.....................................Jimmy Brown

   Helen Flint............................................Nelly Fell

And that's all for Doubting Thomas.  This was the last Will Rogers film released during his lifetime.  Two others were released posthumously.  It's marvelously funny, especially the scene of the play, pure joy to watch.

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