Kid Nightingale

Don't be mislead by all those promising George Hurrell promotional photos released for this film showing beefy John Payne in very noir boxing ring poses. This boxer is a bird-brain singing waiter who gets discovered by a promoter when he loses his job for brawling in frustration. There are lots of annoying developments involving a hyperactive romance with a blond, brassy Jane Wyman while on his way to becoming "Kid Nightingale" ,the boxer who gets on a winning streak by singing when he's hit. Altogether a silly exercise but Payne, always watchable, is entertaining both as a singer and as a boxer. The film is almost a criminal waste of John Payne. Boxing sequences should have been extended; they are way too brief and would have added much more interest.

JOHN PAYNE and JANE WYMAN spent their apprentice years at Warner Bros., Payne usually playing the cocky hero and Wyman the brassy blonde who gives out with the wisecracks. Here we have a boxing yarn that mixes the sport with music (Payne sings) and gangsters. The results are a mixed bag.

Payne is a singing waiter who gets into a brawl with rude customers and punches a couple of guys out. WALTER CATLETT just happens to witness his fisticuffs and presto, he's Payne's boxing manager. JANE WYMAN is a rehearsal pianist (and singer) who duets with Payne on a little ditty when they first meet, looking pert and pretty.

The plot thickens when Catlett decides to take Payne on in a deal he makes with a crooked fight promoter, promoting him as "Kid Nightingale", a guy who can belt out a song as well as a punch. Payne looks good, his sturdy physique shown off to good advantage in all the boxing scenes.

ED BROPHY does his usual hot-tempered, fast talking bit as a fight manager living on bicarbonate of soda, but it's John Payne's film. He gets to sing bits of operatic arias as well as the usual tin pan alley songs as a fighter who sets female hearts aflutter when he finishes each boxing bout with a song.

It's formula stuff but it's entertaining and amusing, with a brief running time. Wyman is pretty much wasted but Payne is delightful in a winning role, perfectly suited to the role of a waiter who becomes a heavyweight contender with fixed fights and a gimmick.

With material like this it's no wonder John Payne got out of his Warner Brothers contract and went on to 20th Century Fox where he finally got to do some major musicals. This is probably something that Dick Powell rejected as he was leaving Warner Brothers as well.

Still Kid Nightingale does have a certain amount of goofy charm to it. Payne is a singing waiter who gets fired for getting into a brawl, but he comes to the attention of fight manager Walter Catlett who's a quick buck artist. Payne is no boxer, but he sings beautifully. Charles D. Brown goes into partnership with Catlett and they bill Payne as Kid Nightingale and set him up with a bunch of tank artists. They even send an orchestra around to accompany him as he gives the fight audience which no consists of a lot of women, a song after each knockout.

Of course Payne is such a knucklehead he hasn't a clue. He even accepts an Italian wrestler as an opera coach when he insists on singing lessons.

Only levelheaded Jane Wyman suspects something's not quite kosher in this setup. She's the means to an inevitable happy ending.

Which I won't give away, but that other Warner Brothers boxing film, The James Cagney classic, The Irish In Us provides a clue, if you've seen it.

Kid Nightingale is so silly it has a certain amount of dopey charm to it and I actually enjoyed it. But no wonder Dick Powell and John Payne whose careers took similar paths left Warner Brothers and didn't look back.

Boxing trainer Skip Davis (Walter Catlett) is crowing about his new fighter who ends up falling flat. He's at a restaurant listening to singing waiter Steve Nelson (John Payne) who gets interrupted by two drunken customers. Steve knocks them out and Skip convinces him to be a boxer for his singing career. He falls for Judy Craig (Jane Wyman). Skip needs to sell the kid using every dirty trick in the book.

This is a little funny, but I don't get the premise. I don't get why Steve would actually fight. The fighting and singing connection is beyond me. I would just drop the singing part. I don't see it making sense. It confuses and complicates the story.

This little film is classic 30's Hollywood comedy. I admit it's too short (it's one reel shy of being fully realized) and would have benefited from some fleshing out (more story/plot than character) but Walter Catlett's performance alone makes this film highly watchable and quite enjoyable. He reminds me so much of Phil Silvers. John Payne is terrific and Jane Wyman a doll but what truly makes this film fun to watch are all the great character actors in it. At 57 minutes, if Kid Nightingale was strictly made as a short than we sure get a lot of bang for our buck. But I think a better choice would have been to expand on it, especially the fight scenes and the ending, which are rushed, and go the distance, which would have made this film a real contender.