It’s been awhile since I’ve just shared an oddball item from my collection and while the condition of this piece makes it nothing special it does represent one of my favorite Warren William titles, 1937’s Outcast, which I covered here last summer.

What we have here is an approximately 9” X 12” single sheet, this one with a smaller image on reverse (both sides shown), that was included in press kits for the film and if ordered by the theater handed out in the streets to tempt customers inside for the movie—it heralded the picture, thus the name.

Clicking on either of the following images will open up an enlarged version of the Herald, 1000 pixels wide.

Finally, this is probably one of the more appropriate posts to remind you that I make my living selling vintage collectibles and offer thousands of vintage movie cards and collectibles from the Silent Age through the Golden Era for sale on eBay.

It’s not her fault, blame likely falls to director Roy Del Ruth, but we needed more from Mary Astor in Upperworld. As it stands I don’t care if her Hettie Stream is guilty of withholding affection from railroad magnate husband, Alex; Ginger Rogers is just too irresistible as showgirl Lily Linda for Hettie to hold his, or our, interest. More Astor one or the other, and I don’t care if that missing more made me either sympathize with her or despise her, would have tied uneven but enjoyable Upperworld together much more.

Mary Astor and Warren William

As if it weren’t enough for Lily to offer Alex a young and carefree alternative to stuffy society dinners, Ginger Rogers gets to blow the rest of the cast off the screen through her sexy and fun performance on stage in something called Manhattan Scandals that we get to attend with Alex and his chauffeur Oscar (Andy Devine).

Ginger Rogers up on stage ... watch out for that powder puff!

Note: This post is one I hadn’t planned so soon, but because Jenny The Nipper of CinemaOCD had asked me to be a guest on her new podcast talking primarily about Upperworld I figured I may as well write my review post at the same time. The podcast can be found here–unfortunately Jenny’s phone line is a little haywire, but I caught most of her keywords and think I managed to make most of my replies relevant to the conversation she intended. My apologies for the overall quality (and my incessant chuckling, I’ve got to knock that off!), but if you wanted to hear a couple of bloggers talking Warren William, this is likely the only WW-centric podcast to be found on the net!

Too late, Andy Devine and Warren William fall victim to Ginger

But despite material right up Ginger’s alley, all punctuated with a powder puff, she can’t claim ownership of the most interesting vocal performance in Upperworld, no, that honor goes to Warren William’s Alexander Stream as he sheds his stuffy exterior and dons a long prop nose and big black hat to enthusiastically sing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” alongside Rogers. This scene is perhaps more fun than any other other clip in Warren William’s career.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

And even if you leave Upperworld with the valid opinion that it’s a Ginger Rogers picture that is no indictment of Warren William’s turn as the lead. Worth approximately 50 million dollars William’s Alexander Stream is a complicated character who has all material things but suffers loneliness because his wife enjoys the high life too much to bother with him anymore. Unlike William’s other ruthless businessmen of the pre-code period we’re not privy to many of his business dealings in Upperworld, all we really know is that he’s the top man in a looming railroad merger, but we do get to witness Stream wield his power most ruthlessly against the traffic cop Moran (Sidney Toler) who dares to write him a ticket. When Moran first confronts Steam, Alex tries to buy the officer off with the power of his identity and a good cigar. When this fails he turns vicious, instructing his assistant Marcus (Ferdinand Gottschalk) to take down the officer’s ID number and swiftly engineering Moran’s transfer and demotion to a patrolman’s beat.

Have a cigar, Officer

This privileged Alex Stream is the Stream of the public. In private Stream has no greater joy than his son Tommy (Dickie Moore), who idolizes his father and emulates him by preoccupying himself with his favorite toy, a train set, throughout Upperworld. Stream is cordial to wife Hettie, but uninterested in her social dalliances and despondent when she vacations with society friends. For a good deal of Upperworld their marital relationship is not unlike that of Sam and Fran Dodsworth, ironically a film in which Mary Astor plays the part of the woman who provides release for Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) from his damaging devotion to his wife. Here Astor’s own lack of interest drives her husband to the arms of the young showgirl who otherwise would have only been a chance acquaintance of Alex’s.

But Upperworld is no romantic melodrama, always keeping it’s pace and playing rather light for the first 35-40 minutes or so, at least when it comes to the scenes between William and Ginger Rogers. In her autobiography Rogers wrote of Upperworld that “I knew very little about the star, Warren William, but I found him a very cordial man” before going on to mention that she regretted not having a scene with Mary Astor. Entire mention of the film filled perhaps half a paragraph, two or three sentences at most. Rogers also shared a quick scene with William in Gold Diggers of 1933 when her Fay Fortune encounters William, Guy Kibbee, Aline MacMahon, and Joan Blondell at a club, but Fay is quickly kicked off the scene by MacMahon’s barbs. Rogers doesn’t make mention of Warren William in relation to Gold Diggers in her book.

In Upperworld Rogers and William have great chemistry, best illustrated in the “Big Bad Wolf” scene but also in a very honest dinner scene where Alex substitutes Lilly for Hettie when Hettie can’t make the date for their 14th Anniversary due to previous social engagements. The honesty between the two characters is refreshing as Alex freely admits the table was intended for his wife and Lilly accepts it.

Alexander Stream with son, Tommy, played by Dickie Moore

Both wife Hettie and lover Lilly comment upon Alex’s being just like a big kid, an image previously reinforced by being shown Alex playing trains with son Tommy. Alexander Stream is one of the shrewdest businessmen in the world but when placed at the center of the scene of a double murder he chokes and the big kid comes out. Instead of phoning police and confessing to his presence at the risk of a scandal; instead of taking what I’d expect is the most likely way out for a man of his stature and calling in his assistant to help cover things up; he goofs by tampering with the murder weapons, covering them with his fingerprints, and then slinking away hoping to pretend he was never there.

He’s felled by bad luck. The scene of the crime also happens to be the new patrol of that cop Moran whom Stream had smacked down earlier. Moran, unaware of the murders at this time, spots Stream leaving the scene and shortly after puts two and two together. Upperworld likely could have been more if Moran was given a chance to be the true hero of the piece, but he’s not and even when given the chance to be more than what he is to the movie Sidney Toler just comes up short.

The murders coming at approximately 40 minutes into the 73 minute Upperworld completely changes the picture from the Dodsworth-lite affair I’d mentioned earlier into a run of the mill murder caper where the main investigator, Officer Moran, is unlikeable, and the star, William, is far too dumb to ever manage to cover-up what he wants swept away.

After the cover-up Stream is in a race to complete to imminent Railway Merger in time to escape overseas with his wife, who has suddenly come to regret her neglect of him after a bridge-table epiphany, before the police manage to expose him. Adding tension to the race is the unfortunate decision by Stream to return to the murder scene and make the appropriate pay-off to John Qualen’s janitor character. After Moran spots a darkened figure unscrewing a light bulb in order to further melt into the darkness the janitor informs Stream that the crazy cop had confiscated the bulb setting off a whole new set of worries about fingerprints for the already jittery Stream.

Shady Stream makes an offer to the janitor played by John Qualen

The murders are jarring and they effectively cut Upperworld in two, but while the movie as a whole is lessened by this it is nonetheless interesting throughout thanks to the typical fast-paced direction of Roy Del Ruth, a Warner’s staple during the period who had previously directed William in Beauty and the Boss (1932) as well as two of his pre-code classics, Employees’ Entrance and The Mind Reader (both 1933). Upperworld would be their last film together and judging by the overall quality of these four films and their overall meaning to William’s legacy I must say that I wish there were more.

Upperworld Director Roy Del Ruth pictured on a card from the 1938 Movie Millions game set

Rogers rules Upperworld while Warren William is very capable as the star. I opened by saying Mary Astor doesn’t have enough to do to warrant her appearance, but it’s worth repeating at the close. Toler fails as Officer Moran, a part which could have allowed somebody with more talent to steal a nice piece of the picture for himself.

Robert Greig as what else, the butler

Andy Devine is great as the chauffeur, while Gottschalk is invisible as Stream’s right hand man. J. Carroll Naish is appropriately sleazy as Lily’s boss, Lou Colima, who makes a quick stab at blackmailing Stream, while Qualen is inappropriately creepy as the janitor, Chris. Dickie Moore doesn’t do anything to hurt the picture and Robert Greig is great doing his usual butler routine as Caldwell, straight-laced but with a wink. For example, after Stream admits his loneliness to Caldwell, the butler tells him what he did when his own wife left him: he consoled himself with a cup of tea and a pantry maid, to which William’s Stream replies, “You’re a devil with the ladies, Caldwell,” one of the film’s funniest lines when you take Greig’s overall appearance and demeanor into account. The rest of the cast is largely inconsequential, except Robert Barrat’s police commissioner who shows up for a single scene and leaves me scratching my head trying to figure out whether he really meant to break that light bulb or not.

Take care of that light bulb, it's key evidence!

Upperworld definitely has its flaws, plenty of them, but it is nonetheless a very enjoyable pre-code film. It’s not one of William’s best pre-codes as he lacks the ill manner present in several of his more enjoyable characters, but he makes a fine account of himself and it is one of Ginger Rogers’ best of the period. Upperworld is alternatively, and perhaps given the way things play out appropriately, referred to in many reference guides as Upper World, the name split in two just like the film itself seems to be.

Warren William's Alexander Stream makes the newspapers

Warren William returns for his third go around as Perry Mason in Warner Brothers’ The Case of the Lucky Legs, an all-out screwball affair this time around but with perhaps the most intricate of cases solved by William’s Mason.

Della's sketch of Perry

When we meet Perry this time around he one-ups Nick Charles’ chronic sousing when Thin Man alumni Porter Hall enters Mason’s office to find Perry passed out on the floor behind his desk. Hall’s Mr. Bradbury, called alternatively by Perry: Mr. Bradbottom; Mr. Bradington; Mr. Braddock; Mr. Bradley; etc; in a running joke, plays straight-man to William’s Mason in a scene not just introducing the Lucky Legs version of Mason but narrating the after-math of the Lucky Legs contest we’ve just been shown in the opening scene.

Porter Hall as Bradbury

In that scene Bradbury awards the Leg Easy Hosiery Company’s $1,000 Lucky Legs prize to Patricia Ellis’ Margie Clune, the best, I guess in 1935-terms at least, of a long line of somewhat chunky gams passing blind from the waist up under a curtain before the occasionally hootin’ and hollerin’ audience. Frank Patton (Craig Reynolds), the Leg Easy representative, immediately arouses our suspicions when upon congratulating Margie he explains that he didn’t carry the cash prize along with him because, well, it’s a lot of money and you know, it could be dangerous.

Contest for the Lucky Legs

Bradbury congratulates Margie and reiterates a standing marriage proposal while doing so. Margie has better prospects than middle-aged Porter Hall though and drifts over to her doctor fiance, Bob Doray, played by the much more age appropriate Lyle Talbot, who turns out to be stiffer than the corpse we eventually encounter: “I’ve resorted to gate-crashing,” Dr. Doray disdainfully pipes, Talbot’s voice seemingly escaping his turned-up nose. He’s entirely disgusted to find his Margie being “judged like a prize heifer.” Margie’s co-worker and jealous rival Eva Lamont (Anita Kerry) chimes in, “Yeah, she does look like a heifer, doesn’t she?” just one of Lucky Legs’ long list of comic lines. When Margie explains they really could use the money, Doc Doray storms out basically convinced that winning the contest is more or less akin to taking up work on a street corner.

Lyle Talbot as Doray and Patricia Ellis as Margie

Meanwhile outside Leg Easy’s Frank Patton is halted from his hasty retreat by Thelma Bell (Peggy Shannon), a Lucky Legs winner from nearby Wayneville, who’s still waiting to be paid her prize money and ready to squeal to the cops if she doesn’t get it.

So this is a Perry Mason movie, we’ve already met a long line of suspects before Perry’s even peeled himself off his floor, and we don’t even have a body yet. Bradbury is impressed by Mason’s skills, despite his disgust for his comportment and demeanor, and hires him on to discover what happened to Patton and the Lucky Legs money. Mason, intrigued by a photo of Margie’s winning legs, is on the case.

Meet Perry Mason

Bradbury doesn’t escape Mason’s office at this initial encounter without first meeting Dr. Croker, ironically referred to by Mason as the mortician’s friend–Croker is played by Olin Howland who was previously Perry’s coroner buddy Wilbur Strong in The Case of the Curious Bride, released earlier that same year. Croker is all wisecracks and talks just as fast as Perry, examining him on the fly and taking the harsh step of putting Perry off booze and restricting his diet, a recipe for even comedy throughout Lucky Legs. When Croker suggests milk as Perry’s new alternative to whiskey, Perry croaks, “You mean that unpalatable byproduct of the cow?”

Olin Howland returns, this time as Perry's Doctor

Allen Jenkins returns as Spudsy apparently having lost several points off his I.Q. since Curious Bride. Rather than verbally sparring with Mason this time around Spudsy’s here to be made a fool of by Mason, who throws him into fits of laughter by tickling him on more than one occasion and repeatedly warns him to duck when in the presence of his wife who typically argues by means of hurling pots and pans in Spudsy’s direction. A nice touch is Mary Treen as Spudsy’s wife as it was Treen who played the Telegraph Operator Spudsy hit on in the previous entry, Curious Bride. Could she be reprising her role and have married Spudsy in the meantime? Probably just coincidence.

Ah Spudsy. Perry phones in to Della

As usual the police are on Perry’s tail throughout Lucky Legs as Mason is discovered in several sticky spots including the murder scene not soon after we land ourselves a victim. It’s no mystery that Lucky Legs deadbeat Patton is the corpse, but just about everyone else is suspected at one time or another with evidence of the murder weapon, a surgical tool, pointing most rigidly at Talbot’s Dr. Doray. Mason spars more with the lower level police this time around, led by Joseph Crehan’s Detective Johnson and his underling, dimwitted Officer Ricker (Charles Wilson), while previous Mason foil Barton MacLane still plays it straight-laced as Detective Bisonette, but is overall much looser with Mason than his previous incarnation as Chief Detective Lucas in Curious Bride–Mason even affectionately calls him Bissy throughout Lucky Legs. The D.A., Manchester, is played by Henry O’Neill, who’s fine as usual in his usually small part.

In a humorous sequence Mason charters a plane to track down Margie, who’s fled out of town. When he tells the pilot he’s hoping to go to Summerville, the pilot enthusiastically replies, “Oh Summerville. I think this crate oughta make that,” to which Mason wisecracks, “Well that’s encouraging. Let’s try it.” Once they land Mason is punch drunk and rubbing at his mouth as though he’s just been sick. He comes to the Summerville hotel where he expects to find the recently arrived Doray and says to the clerk “The last plane brought in a man that was pretty air sick.” The clerk takes one look at reeling Mason and says “I see.”

Peggy Shannon and Patricia Ellis answer to Warren William after he raids their fridge

Inside the hotel he taps lightly at the door of the Bridal Suite to find Doctor Doray but no Margie. Mason cracks “Where’s the curious bride?” a direct reference to his previous outing. When Margie does arrive the police are not far behind so Mason concocts a ruse where he plays a doctor to Margie’s suffering patient, complete with pencil sticking out of her mouth in the guise of a thermometer. Luckily it’s yet another dopey cop whom Mason encounters and he manages to secure a ride out of town with Margie, a chief murder suspect, in a police ambulance which races them back to the airfield where they depart just ahead of some of the forces brighter bulbs.

Genevieve Tobin as Della Street, with Warren William's Mason

In my Case of the Curious Bride review I referred to Claire Dodd, a personal favorite, as the best of William’s Della Street’s. Well, my memory may have failed me as I really loved Genevieve Tobin, who’s usually anything but a personal favorite, as Della in Lucky Legs. At the least I’d call the Dodd vs. Tobin match-up a draw. Tobin, who’s previously driven me crazy in Goodbye Again (1933), a pre-code Warren William title I’ve yet to cover, among a handful of other films, takes the patrician accent that usually just kills her presence for me and spins it as naturally as possible throughout Lucky Legs where she finally seems down to earth. Whether alone in a shot, as she often is during periodic phone calls from Perry, or sharing the scene with Warren William and others, she’s intelligent, witty, and funny and even tossed out a few lines in reference to encounters with Perry which left me wondering how they flew past the Production Code. Tobin has great chemistry with William and just does a wonderful job throughout Lucky Legs.

Tobin and William again with Patricia Ellis' back to us

Perry lays out the details of the case for the benefit of all over the last 12 minutes of Lucky Legs with Dr. Croker squeezing in his final examination throughout Perry’s tale which moves from Mason’s own office over to Croker’s and back to Mason’s, with practically everybody mentioned except Talbot’s Doray and Parker’s corpse following along with Mason’s intricate telling.

I was ready to pick the case apart, not recalling the details at this viewing and expecting the typical heapings of circumstantial evidence to lead the killer to crack under pressure and give himself away. Not so this time. The clues fit together and while we’d seen most of the story Mason tells unfold throughout the picture he brings an order to it that enlightens everybody else in on the case, including us, to what we’d missed. A very satisfying ending, especially when you recall the type of unsatisfying solution I’d just mentioned and remember that it’s what was used in The Thin Man.

Warren William plays Perry Mason of Lucky Legs for heavier laughs than ever before with those lines that aren’t funny on their own benefiting from a rather biting sarcasm that William as Mason is smart enough to pull off. William also seems to bring more of a musical quality to his delivery in his comic outings stressing words in a way that would make most anything he says funny. That said I could see if someone said this was just too much–the New York Times period review did, calling him “just a bit too antic”–but I can’t imagine someone saying that who’s already a Warren William fan. If you are, and I assume you are since you’re here, William’s Mason of Lucky Legs just more William.

A mildly wolfish moment for William inside the tight confines of a phone booth with Patricia Ellis as Margie

Despite thinking William over the top, the Times did give Lucky Legs a glowing review on the whole calling it “a gay, swift and impertinent excursion into the sombre matter of murder … at once the best of the Erle Stanley Gardner collection and deserves being rated close to the top of this season’s list of mystery films.” The Times awards much of its praise to screenwriters Brown Holmes and Ben Markson, and also save extra praise for Tobin’s performance as Della.

Directed by Archie Mayo, who’d previously worked on other Warner’s fast-paced favorites such as The Mayor of Hell (1933) with James Cagney and Bordertown (1935) starring Paul Muni with the classic The Petrified Forest (1936) to come soon after, Lucky Legs keeps as quick a pace as any of those others. Mayo had previously worked with Warren William in Under 18 (1931) a film from William’s first year in Hollywood in which he had a key part supporting Marian Marsh, who’d previously starred for Mayo opposite John Barrymore in Svengali (1931).

I’ll be back much sooner next time around with my coverage of Warren William’s final Perry Mason flick, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), though I may squeeze in one non-Mason review prior to that just to change things up a little. Following are the previous entries in this series:

• The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
• The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)