Word: bartons
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Family Tree (RKO) is the one about Pat and Mike. Pat (James Barton) is Patrick Murphy, an aging Dublin saloonkeeper who, arriving in the U. S. to discover what has become of his son Charles, finds him running for Mayor of Central City, Iowa, and married to a social-climbing snob who has changed their name to Murfree. Mike Donovan (Addison Randall) is Charles Murfree's campaign publicity manager. It is Mike who becomes attached to Murfree's daughter Elinor but it is Pat who horrifies Mrs. Murfree by his frowzy appearance, dances an authentic jig at a political rally...
Based on the highly debatable theory that the Celtic character is the most charming and the most comical of human phenomena, His Family Tree is principally a frame for James Barton's elaborate embroideries in brogue, blarney, eye-twin-kling and jig-steps. That an obsolete comicstrip narrative is not actually offensive is due to the skill of Joel Sayre and John Twist who adapted it for the screen. Good shot: Barton's skit of a drunk trying to read a newspaper which ends when he has rolled it helplessly into a soggy ball...
...James Barton's father was a minstrel. His mother sang the lead in the original Black Crook company. He began his stage career at 5, played boat shows, tent shows, summer stock, vaudeville and burlesque, put in 15 years on Broadway, danced in the Ziegfeld Follies. His press-agent publicized him as "the man with the laughing feet." Professionals rated him as the world's No. 3 hoofer (No. 1, Bill Robin son; No. 2, Fred Astaire). But his reputation never satisfied him until he played Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (TIME, July 2, 1934). Barton tried...
...killed at the front, only blinded. Believing that this will make his life a burden rather than a joy to Kitty, he does not return to her. Instead, under an assumed name, he takes to writing juveniles, attended only by a secretary (Frieda Inescort) and his friend Sir George Barton (John Halliday). On the eve of their marriage, Kitty and Gerald learn of his existence. Still hell-bent on self-sacrifice, Alan arranges the furniture in the living room, hides his Braille books, awaits their call. When they arrive, he greets them soberly, pours a drink for each and, grimly...
This was on the Eden side of the Foreign Office, the big bay window in which British Idealism is kept on view. On the Hoare side, where upper lips are kept stiff, there was silent, discreet, professional conviction that Sir Sidney Barton in Addis Ababa is anything but a fool, and that Empire progress has often been swiftest when the British Lion's right paw quite honestly did not know what the left paw was doing. In the City a most unusual rumor was current that the head of one of Britain's "Big Five" banks, normally...