Brains v. Money Theme of “Footloose Heiress”

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 181, 3 August 1938, Page 11

Brains v. Money Theme of “Footloose Heiress”

PRETTY GIRL WELL SPANKED (Kosy: Screening Friday.) Depicting the jams into which a girl can get herself who has too much money and not enough common sense, is “The Footloose Heiress,” a romantic comedy from the Warner Bros, studios.

Ann Sheridan, statuesque red-haired beauty from Texas, plays the part of the girl. The young man who tames her and makes a nice, normal person out of her, is Craig Reynolds, who hasn’t been seen in enough of these light comedy roles. He’s usually portraying villians, and now he’s having the happiest days he’s ever known because he’s a sympathetic character —one that all audiences like.

There’s a scene in “The Footloose Heiress”—according to all the advance notices —which is said to be the snappiest on the screen since Jimmy Cagney pushed a grape fruit into some girl’s face in a picture several years ago. Craig Reynolds, in this show, takes the voluptuous but brattish Ann Sheridan over his knee, and gives her a real, resounding, old-fashioned spanking. This scene had to be photographed several times over—or so Director William Clemens said while making it—and when it was finally pronounced O.K. the fair Miss Sheridan didn’t forget it for a week.

The screen story, by Robertson White, has to do with a bet of £IOOO which the gay Ann made that she would be married before her eighteenth birthday is over. Craig, achieving a sudden liking for her and a Tespect of her father, prevents this silly stunt and eventually wins her for himself after hilarious complication*