Blessed Event
Blessed Event is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Lee Tracy as a newspaper gossip columnist who becomes entangled with a gangster. The Tracy character (Alvin Roberts) was reportedly patterned after Walter Winchell, famous gossip columnist of the era. The film was Dick Powell's film debut.[1]
| Blessed Event | |
|---|---|
|  | |
| Directed by | Roy Del Ruth | 
| Written by | Howard J. Green | 
| Based on | Blessed Event 1932 play by Manuel Seff and Forrest Wilson | 
| Starring | Lee Tracy Mary Brian | 
| Cinematography | Sol Polito | 
| Edited by | James Gibbon | 
| Music by | Frank Marsales | 
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. | 
| Release date | 
 | 
| Running time | 80 minutes | 
| Country | United States | 
| Language | English | 
Plot
    
Alvin Roberts feuds with singer Bunny Harmon. Roberts reports on society people who are expecting a "blessed event", i.e. going to have a child. One such report antagonizes a gangster in a delicate situation, who sends over a henchman to threaten him. Roberts manages to turn the tables on the gangster.
The character of Bunny Harmon is a parody of Rudy Vallee, as both of them sing and play saxophone, and Vallee's band was called the Connecticut Yankees, while Harmon's is the Green Mountain Boys, a reference to another New England state, Vermont. The feud between Roberts and Harmon is a parody of the real-life (contrived) feud between Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie.
Cast
    
- Lee Tracy as Alvin Roberts
- Mary Brian as Gladys Price
- Dick Powell as Bunny Harmon
- Allen Jenkins as Frankie Wells
- Ruth Donnelly as Miss Stevens
- Emma Dunn as Mrs. Roberts
- Edwin Maxwell as Sam Goebel
- Ned Sparks as George Moxley
- Walter Walker as Mr. Miller
- Frank McHugh as Reilly
- Herman Bing as Emil
- George Chandler as Hanson (uncredited)
- Isabel Jewell as Dorothy Lane (uncredited)
External links
    
- Blessed Event at the TCM Movie Database
- Blessed Event at IMDb
- Blessed Event at AllMovie
- Blessed Event at the American Film Institute Catalog